


Dark Places

by chesherss



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M, Female Friendship, POV Female Character, POV Original Female Character, Physical Abuse, Romance, Shiratorizawa, Slow Burn, Underage Drinking, Verbal Abuse, guess monster, side character romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:34:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 27,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27295006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chesherss/pseuds/chesherss
Summary: “I think those can sometimes be the best places if you give them a chance.”A story of self-discovery in which Maeko finds the strength to unapologetically be herself and adopt an 'ignoring the haters' mindset with unexpected help from (the KING himself pls marry me in another life chicken tendou) a tall redhead who learned the same life lesson.
Relationships: Tendou Satori/Original Character(s), Tendou Satori/Original Female Character(s), Tendou Satori/Reader
Comments: 48
Kudos: 87





	1. REMEMBER ME ON THAT DAY

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everybody, thanks so much for clicking on my story! If you decide to stick around then I hope you enjoy it. I look forward to reading comments!
> 
> This is a female OC x Tendou fanfic, but it'll also feature quite a bit of secondary characters which may or may not have small, romantic sub-plots of their own -whistles innocently-.
> 
> Tendou is one of my favourite characters, so I'm really looking forward to writing this!
> 
> In regards to **TW's:** I rated this story mature because it will contain themes of bullying, verbal and physical abuse, underage drinking, and a little sexual material (all verbal). If you're very uncomfortable with any of these subjects, then this story might not be right for you. None of these themes are included in overwhelming detail, but they are included. **I have marked chapter titles with *'s to indicate where you can expect the most detail. This is mostly for verbal/physical abuse.**
> 
> Without further ado, let's get rolling!

_"Ugh,_ where is it?" Maeko's head was buried inside of her bookbag, rummaging around for her math textbook. Of course she forgot it.

It was her first day of school at Shiratorizawa Academy so, naturally, her nerves were sitting at an all time high. Maeko was below-average at functioning in society like a regular human being. Just as she was finally getting used to her middle school, the time had come to transfer to a new high school with new people in it. She spent so much time mentally preparing to be in an unfamiliar environment that she forgot to double-check that she had all her things. Considering this was one of the hardest schools in the prefecture to get accepted into, she didn't expect her math teacher to be forgiving of an avoidable mistake on the first day.

"Looking for this?"

Maeko hit her head on her locker door as she pulled it out, surprised by the sudden, unexpected voice beside her.

It was none other than Ayume, her one and only friend, smiling as she waved the math textbook back in forth in the air.

Ayume narrowed her eyes in concern, pushing the textbook into Maeko's hands. "Be careful."

"Thanks." Maeko mumbled. "But what about you? Aren't you going to need a textbook too?"

"Don't worry about me." Ayume dismissed Maeko's concern with a sharp wave of her hand, eyes tracking the movement of a tall, black-haired boy making his way down the hallway. He had a math textbook tucked against his side.

Maeko inwardly shuddered. "You're seriously not going to—"

Ayume winked before briskly turning to follow the boy to class, waving goodbye to Maeko from over her shoulder. "Don't forget you promised to watch me practice after school today! I'll see you at the gym at four o'clock!"

Maeko groaned. She forgot all about it, but Ayume wasn't going to let her off the hook. If she didn't come willingly, then Ayume would track her down to the ends of the earth and drag her to practice by a handful of her hair. It would be immaculately more embarrassing, so she resolved to dedicate some of today's lunch break to building up the strength to attend.

Maeko and Ayume were total opposites: Maeko was a quiet, reserved bookworm who preferred to stay under the radar, while Ayume was popular, athletic, and extremely bold. Ayume was captain of her middle school volleyball team and starting as one of the only regular first years for Shiratorizawa.

They miraculously bonded in elementary school and, ever since then, Ayume had taken Maeko under her wing and all but walked her through the fiery fires of _school._

Change always made Maeko feel incredibly anxious but, of course, Ayume knew that. It was no coincidence that she'd shown up in the nick of the time with the exact textbook Maeko needed. Ayume was going to have eyes on Maeko all day, making sure her first day was as easy and free of stress as possible. She'd distract Maeko from the fact that she was in a _new_ school with _hundreds_ of unfamiliar faces with bolder-than-usual behaviour.

Exhibit A was in the process of happening as, at the end of the hall, Ayume tossed her red hair over her shoulder and batted her pretty light brown eyes, all to flirtatiously secure the math textbook that the poor boy from earlier was holding in his arms for dear life. It'd probably cost him detention for coming to class unprepared but, no matter how much he resisted, Ayume would get her way in the end. She always had a way of doing that. Sometimes, Maeko envied it.

\---

Lo and behold, Maeko knew she shouldn't have doubted Ayume for even a second. She innocently flipped through the pages of her _borrowed_ math textbook while, at the front of the class, the black-haired boy stiffly bowed in apology as the teacher harshly scolded him.

There was a snort of laughter from the classroom door.

"You forgot your textbook? How unlike you, Goshiki!" A tall boy with spiky red hair sauntered into the classroom, roughly patting the black-haired boy, apparently Goshiki, on the back.

Goshiki straightened up in surprise. His face was bright red like he might spill the truth any second. Maeko glanced at Ayume, but she was still flipping through the textbook without a care in the world. She didn't seem concerned in the slightest.

The red-haired boy walked over to the empty desk directly to Maeko's right and, after pulling the chair out with a harsh squeak of its legs across the floor, lazily collapsed into the seat.

Maeko stiffened, hardly daring to breathe in the chance it'd attract his attention.

 _That_ was when Ayume finally averted her eyes from the textbook.

Gathering her things, Ayume ambled to the front of the classroom and then delicately spun around in front of the desk that the red-haired boy just claimed, firmly _slapping_ a palm down on top of it.

"Do you think I could have that seat?" Her voice was as sweet as honey. She dropped her things onto the desk as if he'd already said yes.

Maeko reluctantly watched through the corner of her eye, sending Ayume a silent thanks. Ayume didn't like sitting at the front of the classroom like Maeko did, but she probably _smelled_ the unease rolling off of Maeko's body in waves.

The red-haired boy glanced from Ayume to her things, and then back again to Ayume. He leaned back in the chair and stretched his arms over his head, getting more comfortable. "No."

Ayume's eyes widened in disbelief. "N-no?"

That wasn't a word she heard very often.

The red-haired boy nodded his head, using his long fingers to spell it out in the air as he emphasized each letter. "N-O."

Ayume scoffed but, before she could reply, another boy had wandered into the classroom and was now looming behind her.

"Ushijima! I'm so glad you could join me." The red-haired boy smiled sweetly.

Ayume turned around very slowly. The boy was _much_ bigger than her, but that didn't stop her from looking him up and down critically like she was the predator and he the prey. The red-haired boy had put her in a sour mood.

Ushijima didn't even look at Ayume. He stared directly over top of her head at the red-haired boy. "This isn't our class, Tendou. Let's stop disturbing the teacher."

Ushijima turned around, bowing respectfully to the teacher.

The teacher was being _very_ cold with Goshiki earlier but, for Ushijima, he smiled as if it was nothing. He must've been a big deal at Shiratorizawa.

Tendou whistled, avoiding Ayume's death glare as he rocketed out of the seat and then through the classroom door, tussling Goshiki's hair as he went.

Ushijima followed Tendou out of the classroom at a much slower, more comfortable pace, also pausing in front of Goshiki. "Try not to forget your books tomorrow, Goshiki. It's important to be organized and well-prepared for your classes."

"Y-yes sir!" Goshiki stuttered, waiting to be excused by the teacher before finding himself a seat in the middle of the room.

Ushijima left without another word or glance.

Ayume settled into the newly available seat beside Maeko, sighing heavily. "They're all members of the boys' volleyball club. I've seen Ushijima in a _ton_ of magazines, but he's a lot colder than I imagined."

She leaned to the side, cupping her mouth in her hands to whisper it like a secret. "Hotter too, don't you think?"

Except it was hardly a whisper at all. The teacher stared at the two of them with a dumbfounded expression before awkwardly clearing his throat and beginning the class.

Maeko lowered her head onto her crossed arms, embarrassed. 


	2. I PROBABLY FELL IN LOVE WITH YOU

Ayume gave Maeko _very_ clear and detailed instructions to the gymnasium so she wouldn't get lost. The instructions were down to how many steps Maeko would have to take down the hallway before taking a turn. That amount of detail might've sounded silly to anybody else, but Maeko genuinely appreciated it. Counting her steps helped keep her mind clear from the overwhelming amount of people she passed in the halls.

Ayume's practice wasn't until an hour after the last class of the day, but Maeko assumed she'd still be at the gymnasium.

She clearly assumed wrong.

Maeko could hear shoes squeaking on the floor and, to her horror, it belonged to the boys' volleyball club in the middle of practicing some serving drills.

For a while, Maeko was frozen in place. She could do little more than helplessly watch from the door, too afraid to move but _equally_ afraid of being spotted the longer she lingered there like a creep.

She considered leaving altogether, but she knew she'd get a mouthful from Ayume if she didn't show up. Her best option was to quietly sneak along the wall of the gymnasium until she reached the stairwell up to the bleachers, where she could hopefully sit without drawing any attention to herself.

Her plan sounded a lot better when it was inside of her head. The wall was _ridiculously_ longer than she thought it'd be. Seriously, how long was she going to be side-stepping like this, glued to the wall like a nasty fly?

The red-haired boy from earlier, Tendou, leapt into the air and spiked one of the volleyballs that was being tossed from the other side of the net. To Maeko's complete and utter dismay, it took on a dangerous spin and came flying across the gymnasium to none other than the exact spot that she was standing in. Maeko shrieked in terror, but it was moving far too quickly for her to react in time.

The volleyball hit her dead center in the forehead.

Maeko crumbled onto the floor, feeling lightheaded and dizzy.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!"

There was a very small, fragile, old-looking man yelling from the sidelines of the volleyball court, waving his arms angrily. Maeko's vision was too fuzzy to clearly make out any of his features. In her current state, she was unable to take him seriously—which was probably for the best. A Maeko who was capable of clear, coherent thought would've crumbled a lot faster if someone started yelling at her like that.

 _I feel sorry for whoever that is,_ she thought absentmindedly, obliviously.

Maeko held her head in between her hands, swaying back and forth. _I feel so sleepy._

Someone walked over to her, casting their shadow over top of her. _Am I going to pass out?_

They had a foot planted on either side of her outstretched, flailing legs, and then they knelt to eye level. _Ayume, is that you?_

Suddenly, there was a large, warm hand laid on top of both of hers, holding her head in place and then lifting it up.

Maeko's vision was still a little fuzzy, but there was no mistaking that spiky red hair.

Her breath hitched in her throat, opening and closing her mouth like a fish out of water. He was _touching_ her. He was kneeling _over top_ of her. Did he have to be that _close?_

He said something, but Maeko couldn't quite make out the words. Assuming he asked if she was feeling okay after taking a spike to the head, she nodded vigorously. "I-I'm fine. I s-swear."

"Hm?" Tendou tilted his head to the side, confused.

He removed his hands, making it phenomenally easier for Maeko to breathe.

He was still kneeling though. Rather than stand back up and give Maeko some space, he reached beside him and picked up the volleyball that had ricocheted off her forehead. He held it beside her head, squinting.

"I was saying that _huge_ red bump on your forehead is the same colour as the red stripes on this volleyball." Tendou glanced between Maeko and the volleyball, seeming genuinely fascinated by it.

"I—uh..." Maeko had absolutely no clue how she was supposed to respond to that.

"TENDOU!" It was the same old man shouting again.

Tendou's shoulders tensed up. Maeko thought it almost looked like he was turning his head one hundred and eighty degrees without turning the rest of his body, like an owl, trying to look and act as innocent as possible while his coach was screaming his name. Her head must've been playing tricks on her.

"What can I do for you, coach?" Tendou cooed, batting his big eyes.

"Take that stupid girl to the nurse and then get back here! You'll be staying behind and practicing late for every minute it takes you!"

 _Ouch,_ Maeko thought, in equal parts about her head injury and the coach's insults.

"Yikes." Tendou shuddered, turning back to Maeko. "What are the chances of you standing up and walking in the next five seconds? No pressure, but there's a lot depending on it."

Maeko heaved herself off the floor and almost immediately regretted it. The second she tried to take a step she completely lost her balance. She would've tumbled back onto the floor if Tendou hadn't grabbed a hold of her arm, rooting her in place.

Normally, this amount of physical contact and conversation with an unfamiliar boy would've been more than enough to make Maeko simply pass away.

Especially _this_ boy. His hair was outrageous and rebellious. Both times she'd been unlucky enough to cross paths with him he had a wild, untamed look in his eye. It was difficult to make sense of his words and behaviour.

Maeko couldn't keep up with him.

However, with that said, she was in no position to deny any amount of assistance right now.

"That's what I thought. I guess I've got no choice then." Without any kind of warning, Tendou bent over and grabbed Maeko by the legs, hoisting her off the ground and then throwing her over his shoulder.

Maeko squeaked in surprise like a defenseless mouse.

"What do you think you're doing?" In Maeko's mind, the sentence sounded like a threatening demand to be put down at once; but in reality, it was hardly above a whisper, and she was startled that he even heard her speak in the first place.

"I don't want to have to practice any later than I have to, and you _probably_ want to get that head injury checked out sooner rather than later, am I right?" Tendou glanced behind him, but it wasn't like Maeko could see him do it from the angle she was at. "In that case, this is a win-win for both of us. It'll all be over soon, so sit back and enjoy the ride."

 _"Oh."_ Tendou gasped. "That sounded a little _suggestive,_ didn't it? My bad."

Maeko was absolutely mortified.

Was this real? Was any of this actually happening to her? Ayume wouldn't believe her even if she tried to explain, which she _wouldn't_ because even _trying_ to put it into words would make her shrivel up in embarrassment.

At least it really _was_ over before she knew it.

Tendou gently put Maeko back onto her own two feet in front of the nurse's office. "Delivered safe and sound."

Maeko stared at Tendou blankly. She hardly felt safe _or_ sound.

Tendou stared back. "Aren't you going to thank me?"

Maeko limply gestured to her forehead where, right about now, she was beginning to feel the bump that he had been talking about take shape. "You hit me in the head with a volleyball."

Nine words had been more than enough for one person to handle in one day's work. Maeko turned around and dashed into the nurse's office, slamming the door shut behind her.

Tendou peered through the window on the door, watching as the nurse helped Maeko take a seat on the bed.

Maeko made eye contact with Tendou from over the nurse's shoulder.

He sucked in a huge gulp of air and then exhaled onto the glass, making it fog up. With one long, gangly finger, he wrote the word _oops._

Not even _sorry._

Tendou disappeared from the window's view, whistling as he made his way back towards the gymnasium. 


	3. TONGUE RIP LIKE RAZOR

"I can't believe you fell down the stairs." Ayume was still in disbelief, trying to wrap her head around how Maeko obtained her head injury.

"What stairs were they? My directions didn't take you anywhere _near_ stairs." Ayume, the sleuth she was, had tons of questions.

Maeko expected to receive an angry text message from Ayume after she didn't show up to watch her practice, but she had been occupied in the nurse's office a little longer than she'd hoped to be. There was no way she could lie about it, especially not after the nurse opted to stick a thick piece of cloth to it for the next twenty-four hours, but she also couldn't tell Ayume about Tendou.

Or, rather, she didn't want to.

The embarrassment was still fresh in Maeko's mind, and the idea of reliving it didn't sit well in her stomach. Besides, it wasn't like she was ever going to have any reason to talk to him again, so there was no point in telling Ayume.

Maeko scrambled to think of a believable staircase. "Uh, it was the ones by—"

"Hey, Maeko, I've been looking for you all morning!" _It couldn't be._

Maeko turned around very slowly and, just as she feared, it was none other than Tendou who had called her name, followed closely by three of his teammates: Maeko recognized Ushijima and Goshiki, but the third boy with shaggy grey hair was unknown to her.

Maeko could feel Ayume burning holes into the side of her head.

"H-how do you know my name?" Maeko made a point of _never_ telling him that.

"Oh, that." Tendou waved his hand dismissively. "I stopped by your classroom from the other day and peeked at your class-list."

He admitted it so casually. Did he not realize that was an invasion of Maeko's privacy? Her mouth hung open in surprise, feeling uncomfortable and out of her element.

"Don't give me that look!" Tendou protested. "How else was I supposed to check up on you? Speaking of—" He leaned forward, his face hovering dangerously close to Maeko's as he squinted at the bandage concealing her head injury.

She flinched, eyes shyly flickering between hers and his shoes.

Tendou waved his teammates closer. "What a shame. There's no way I can prove to you guys how big it was now. You'll just have to take my word for it."

Even beneath the bandage, the bump that the volleyball left behind was bulging slightly.

Goshiki snickered.

The grey-haired boy shrugged his shoulders. "Looks painful."

Ayume suddenly stepped forward and used her hands to shove Tendou aside. "Hey, there's a thing called personal space."

Tendou raised both of his arms in surrender, but his facial expression was hardly apologetic. Maeko had a feeling the shove wouldn't have moved him if he didn't feel like letting it in the spur of the moment.

Ayume fixed Ushijima with an unimpressed stare. "Control your _beasts."_ And then back to Tendou, even colder than before. "Is it not obvious that you're making her uncomfortable?"

Tendou actually seemed to consider it. He analyzed Maeko's body language carefully, making soft _hm_ noises under his breath. It definitely wasn't making her feel any less uncomfortable.

Ushijima firmly rested a hand on Tendou's shoulder, steering him away. "I'm sorry. He doesn't mean to disrespect either of you."

The words must've been a silent command because Tendou eagerly nodded his head in agreement. "Of course, of course. We'll be seeing you around."

The four boys wandered off, leaving Ayume and Maeko standing alone.

Ayume scoffed, shaking her head at Ushijima's turned back. "God, he needs a personality." But Maeko wasn't getting off the hook that easily. "Aren't you going to tell me what that was about? When did you start talking to Tendou?"

Maeko played with the end of her blonde ponytail. "I'm not _talking_ to... him." Maeko gestured lamely in Tendou's direction rather than use his name. "We just..."

Ayume gasped sharply. "Don't tell me he pushed you down the stairs!"

"What? No!" Maeko frantically searched for the right words to explain before Ayume jumped to more conclusions, but she was too slow.

Ayume turned her head up and to the side, squinting at Maeko down the length of her nose. "Surely you aren't..."

Maeko wasn't following. The confusion was evident on her face.

"You know..." Ayume glanced sheepishly to either side, making sure nobody was listening. "I assumed Tendou was a little freaky but coming from _you_ that's just plain shocking."

"Oh my god, _Ayume._ Stop being ridiculous. Of course not." A deep pink blush spread across Maeko's cheeks. "He spiked a volleyball into my face when I came to watch you practice and then carried me over his shoulders to the nurse's office. There, are you happy?"

Ayume was deathly quiet, but then she burst out laughing.

"That wasn't so hard to tell me, now was it?" She softly smacked Maeko's arm. "I prefer that to either of my guesses. Seriously, Tendou is so _weird,_ so if that's all it was then try to stay away from him from now on."

Maeko could believe it after the other day, but she still wondered if Ayume was being a little too harsh. "What do you mean?"

"The girls on my team were telling me a lot of creepy stories about him. Get this, he sometimes sings songs about breaking people's hearts in the middle of matches." Ayume shuddered. "Who does that?"

Maeko shivered. Hearing a story like that made the feeling of his hands around her legs, slinging her over his shoulder, crawl to the forefront of her memory. "Yeah, that's pretty weird."


	4. FLASHBACK*

**[TW REMINDER: Contains themes of bullying and verbal abuse. Please skip if you'd prefer to avoid this type of content, thanks!]**

\---

Maeko fell to the ground, landing awkwardly on her elbow. A sharp pain blossomed at the sight of impact and shot up the length of her arm.

Her glasses fell off. They were laying in the dirt right next to her.

She reached over to grab them but, before she could, a shoe firmly stepped on top of them. She heard the frames _crack,_ but she winced more from knowing how much they would cost her parents to replace—again.

"You never stand up for yourself."

"You're so weak."

"All you do is sit there and take it."

"You make it too easy."

"You're so _weird."_

Maeko didn't know which voice belonged with which insult. There was too many of them to keep track of every day.

"Hey, you over there!"

 _Great,_ exactly what she needed was another one of her tormentors to join the party late. Maeko sighed into the dirt, longing for it to be over so she could just go home and lie in bed.

"Quit it!"

Maeko heard shoving and then, next thing she knew, someone was kneeling next to her and offering a hand to help her stand.

She lifted her head off the ground and saw that the girl offering a hand was smiling. It nearly brought tears to Maeko's eyes.

"Don't worry, they're not going to bother you anymore. My name's Ayume. I'm new here, so do you think you can show me around later?"

Maeko was at a loss for words, but she nodded her head very quickly. In that moment, nothing had ever sounded better than showing that impossibly kind girl around.


	5. I GUESS YOU'RE NOT INTERESTED YET

Maeko nervously peeked over her shoulder, wondering if he was still following her.

She didn't notice him walking this way previously but, she supposed, they had different schedules because of his volleyball practice, and she sometimes stayed behind late to do homework in the library. Maybe he lived in the same direction as her. Maybe it was all just one big, unlucky coincidence.

Just to be safe, Maeko took a left turn that she wasn't supposed to, followed by three right turns. She'd walked in a circle and was now standing in the same spot that she'd began at and, lo and behold, he was still a short distance behind her.

Maeko tried to steady her emotions with a deep, calming breath before she turned around to face him, trying to make her expression as steely and unfriendly as possible. "Why are you following me?"

Tendou glanced over his shoulder, doing a double-take as if to say: _Who, me?_

Maeko stayed deathly quiet, folding her arms across her chest to show she meant business.

Tendou sighed and took a long stride closer to Maeko but, seeing her take a step back, he froze in place, eying her carefully. "I'm just out for a stroll!"

"A stroll?" Maeko stared with a blank look on her face, not believing him for even a second. "You just followed me in a complete circle."

Tendou pointed to the right down a long, narrow alleyway. "If you must know, I was just about to head this way."

Maeko leaned forward hesitantly, trying to peer in the direction he was pointing. She still wasn't convinced. "Why didn't you go that way to begin with?"

"So many questions!" Tendou ran his hands through his spiky red hair until they came to rest behind the back of his head, fingers linking together. "I guess I might've wanted to talk to you a bit first."

"Why?" Maeko had nothing to say to him. She was clueless what he could possibly have to say to her.

This was the exact opposite of staying away from him like Ayume warned her to.

"Why this, why that. Do you not know any other words?" Tendou asked with a bemused expression.

Maeko got the impression he was trying to make light of the situation, but she wasn't going to let him do it. "If that's all you had to say, then I'm going to go home now."

She briskly turned around and took a few steps down the sidewalk, but she didn't make it very far before one of Tendou's hands curled around her arm. "Wait a second, I—"

"What do you think you're doing?" Maeko said, startled, pulling her arm out of Tendou's hand and stepping back.

She wished Ayume was here, but she wasn't.

Maeko had no choice but to try to deal with this by herself.

"You don't know me." Maeko's voice was on the verge of cracking, and she had to fight to keep the tears that welled in the corners of her eyes from spilling. "Please don't grab my arms, or follow me after school, or shout my name in the hallways, or—"

Her voice _did_ crack that time.

Tendou looked sincerely hurt, withdrawing away from her like the words had been a physical weapon held in his face. Or, perhaps, it was _disgust_ with himself, like he had accidentally done the exact opposite of whatever he had meant to do.

That made Maeko feel extremely guilty. She wasn't trying to make it seem like she was _scared_ of him—even though a small part of her was.

It wasn't that he was _scary_ as much as he was loud and unpredictable which, for Maeko, were scary things. Maeko was no good at coping with characteristics like that. She didn't know how to react to him and, clearly, he didn't know how to react to her in a way that would make her calmer in his presence.

Maeko sighed, deciding to apologize for what she said even though her heart was still beating out of control—even though she meant it. "Look, Tendou, I—"

"—I'm sorry." He said quietly.

Even his body language in that moment was somehow quiet.

He kept his eyes glued to the ground. "Truthfully, that's what I wanted to say to you in the first place. Earlier today, your friend..." He struggled to recall her name.

"Ayume." Maeko said just as quietly.

Tendou nodded. _"Ayume_ pushed me away and told me that I was making you uncomfortable. I wondered for a while why you didn't tell me yourself, but then I realized it must be because you don't feel like you can."

Tendou lifted his eyes to Maeko's, but only briefly, only to confirm that he was right.

He gathered from her pitiful expression that he was. "I make a lot of people uncomfortable. It's nothing new."

He shrugged his shoulders like it was no big deal. "Anyways, I just wanted to catch up to you and let you know that I—" he paused again to search for the right word, but this time Maeko had nothing to offer up for it. "—didn't want you to have that opinion of me, I guess."

Maeko was speechless.

She was _actually_ speechless. Having to explain to Tendou the source of her discomfort so directly like that had taken a toll.

Tendou gave his head a rough shake and, just like that, all of the _sorrow_ and _pain_ she saw in his eyes while he explained himself was gone.

With a smile, he turned around and headed for the alleyway. "Walk safely."

Such an odd and ironic thing to say when it only felt like she could now that he was gone. Perhaps he knew that too.

Without properly thinking it through first, Maeko approached the alleyway as if her feet had a mind of their own. She peered down the dark, dimly lit street and just barely made out Tendou's side profile ducking into a store.

Maeko had absolutely no idea what compelled her to check on him, but it felt like the right thing to do.

After taking a minute to gather up her courage, she wandered down the alleyway until she was standing outside of the door he walked through. She tentatively pulled it open, wincing when it released a harsh, squeaking noise.

Inside was an arcade.

She didn't even know this place existed.

It wasn't a particularly big space, and the variety of games was certainly nothing to boast about, either. The room looked dirty, like it hadn't been cleaned since it opened. Besides Tendou, who she recognized by the red spikes of hair sticking over the top of the chair, there was nobody playing games or appearing to work in the place.

Maeko sighed with relief. If he had come to the arcade to play games than she surely had been overthinking and had nothing to worry about.

For a second, she thought he might've _lived_ down there.

She turned back and exited the arcade, quickly scurrying back to the main road.


	6. JUST LET 'EM WANNA JUDGE YOU

A week had come and gone, and Maeko was sitting on the sidelines where coaches and managers usually sat to watch her best friend, Ayume, practice, even though she still wasn't sure if she felt up to it after the last time she tried to attend.

This time, at least, had gone a lot smoother. Maeko managed to enter the gymnasium without any freak accidents. She still felt at risk of another volleyball in the face due to the bench's proximity to the players but, overall, she had to admit that it was sort of fun to watch Ayume play.

It was less fun that the boys' volleyball club was also practicing today.

The girls and boys' clubs normally didn't have to share the gymnasium since the school put enough funding into its extracurriculars, but sometimes they chose to practice together. The girls' team was well-known for its defense. Maeko thought on more than one occasion that Ushijima's spikes would rip their arms off cleanly at the sockets but, surprisingly, the girls' team could hold their own against it.

Ushijima was probably holding back _just_ a little.

But it wasn't like his spikes were the only thing that the girls' team had to worry about.

When it came around to their turn to attack, the spiker was never without at least two blocks, one of them being Tendou.

Maeko wasn't too familiar with the rules of volleyball, but Tendou's performance made absolutely no sense to her. He would take off towards one of the spikers before the setter even touched the ball and, more often than not, he was in the right place to block it. His hands moved expertly in response to the ball as if he could predict its every move, but that had to be impossible. Nobody was that good at reading people.

He made mistakes sometimes, and when that happened it was almost guaranteed to cost his team a point, but the points he earned seemed to greatly outweigh the handful he lost.

On top of that, it looked like he was really enjoying himself on the court.

Every time he correctly predicted and blocked a spike, he'd celebrate as if one point equaled ten. His playful atmosphere on the court was infectious, but Maeko couldn't help noticing that some teammates looked more at ease with him than others.

It was the fifth time that Tendou predicted and blocked Ayume's spike. At least, the fifth time since Maeko started counting.

Ayume looked exhausted. She was hunched over with her hands on her knees, breathing heavily.

"You're so easy to read." Tendou teased, lacing his fingers together behind his back.

His face expression was difficult to put into words whenever he had the opportunity to look down the length of his nose at a spiker he blocked. All Maeko could think to say about it was that she was grateful not to be standing on the receiving end.

"Shut up." Ayume responded venomously, abruptly standing up and turning her back on Tendou.

Maeko could tell that Tendou was getting to Ayume simply from the way she chose to insult him. She was ordinarily a lot cleverer and wittier than that.

Tendou's eyes drifted to the bench where Maeko was sitting and, with a start, she shyly averted her gaze and pretended that she was preoccupied with a _very_ interesting wall. She hesitantly returned her eyes to the court when she thought he finally looked away.

The girls who weren't regular players were sitting close enough to Maeko that she could overhear snippets of their conversation.

"It must be exhausting to try to keep him from reading your plays."

"I don't envy the regulars when we practice with the boys like this."

"No wonder they call him _guess monster."_

That was an interesting nickname. Maeko rolled the syllables around on her tongue as she watched Tendou's next play: His eyes were glued to the volleyball like a leech as it fell against the setter's fingertips and then, in a flash, he positioned himself at the middle of the net and jumped _just_ in time to block a back attack.

Was that what Tendou was doing? _Guessing?_

By the time practice was over, Maeko felt exhausted as if she had been playing too. The gymnasium was a loud and energetic place. It tended to sap her energy very quickly.

Ayume collapsed onto the bench directly beside Maeko, pouring water into her mouth faster than she could drink it.

"Good job." Maeko said meekly, unsure how to properly congratulate an athlete or what, exactly, constituted a job well done.

Ayume snickered, easily catching onto Maeko's uncertainty. "Thanks."

Ushijima paused in front of Ayume and Maeko on his way out. He side-eyed the two girls without even turning his body towards them.

Maeko shrunk beneath even _half_ of his gaze; Ayume, on the other hand, quirked an eyebrow in impatience. "Can we help you?"

His facial expression remained deeply and uncompromisingly neutral. Ayume's short fuse had no effect on him. "It's impossible to avoid a block from Tendou if he reads your setter, but there are steps you can still take to get around him. Consider working on your midair form."

Ayume stared intensely at Ushijima, her lip curled in distaste. "When did I ask for your advice?"

Goshiki made an awkward noise from a short distance behind Ushijima. _"The_ Ushijima is offering you free advice, and you're not—"

Ayume silenced him with one deep, cold look.

Goshiki quickly gathered his things and headed for the exit, lips pursed.

"Consider it." Ushijima repeated before following after Goshiki.

Ayume rolled her eyes. "Unbelievable."

Maeko slightly angled her body towards Ayume, pulling one of her legs onto the bench. "Why do they call Tendou _guess monster?"_

"You overheard that from someone?" Ayume asked, not sounding surprised. "That nickname has been following Tendou around for a long time based on what I've heard about it. It's because he uses guess-blocking as opposed to read-blocking."

Maeko tilted her head to the side, puzzled.

Ayume waved her hand dismissively. "I won't go into the details. All you need to know is that it's a lot harder and usually has a lower success rate, but Tendou is somehow an exception to that. He reads plays with _scary_ accuracy as you probably saw today."

She didn't look pleased in the slightest as she reflected on how many times Tendou blocked her.

"I think I understand." Maeko said. "That's a cool nickname."

"Then you don't understand." Ayume replied hastily, shaking her head harshly.

Maeko turned to look at her best friend with wide eyes.

Ayume raised her eyebrows as if it was obvious. "It isn't a _compliment,_ Maeko. They're calling him a monster." She gazed thoughtfully up at the ceiling, adding as an afterthought: "He sure looks like one."

Maeko didn't think about it like that.

She was suddenly reminded of the uneasy looks some of his teammates gave him throughout the duration of practice. Up until now, she thought the boys' team was proud to have Tendou on their side, but maybe it was more like they were just grateful not to be playing against him.

It sounded lonely.

She made a mental note not to call him by his nickname if she could help it.


	7. BEST PLACES

There were days when Maeko walked home alone, and then there were days when hers and Tendou's schedules synced up and she'd catch sight of him taking the same turn down the same dark alleyway towards the arcade.

He seemed to go there a lot. Were there not better and _cleaner_ arcades elsewhere?

Every time, Maeko would pause and glance over her shoulder to watch him take the turn. On the days he wasn't walking behind her, she still sometimes habitually stopped to double-check that she hadn't accidentally missed him; although missing him wasn't an easy thing to do by any means, so that was oftentimes followed by her feeling silly.

Today, he was there.

He never walked with her any farther than the arcade. He also never met her eye when she turned around to glance at him.

His strides look awkwardly short, like he was forcing himself to take smaller steps than what suited his long legs just so he wouldn't risk catching up to her.

 _Scaring her,_ he must've thought—and she couldn't blame him for thinking that after what she'd said to him.

Maeko sighed. That feeling of guilt still swam in the pit of her stomach any time she thought about her conversation with him in this very spot. It wouldn't go away.

She knew that meant she had to fix something.

Maeko internally groaned as she spun on her heel and then pursued Tendou down the alleyway and into the arcade. She could visualize a much smaller version of Ayume sitting on her shoulder and scolding her for this decision, but her hand was already on the doorknob, and the door was already swinging open with that ear-splitting screech against the floor.

He was sitting in the same spot as last time. As she got closer, she could make out a few details of the game on the screen: It looked like his avatar was a spaceship, and he had to navigate it through space without getting hit by meteorites or alien spacecrafts.

Maeko slipped into the empty seat beside him, trying not to think about how dirty the seat or the machine in front of her looked.

"Who's following who now?" Tendou asked with a singsong lilt, never taking his eyes off the screen in front of him.

Maeko ignored the question. "Why do you come here so often?"

He took his eyes off the screen for a second. "You don't like it?"

"It's..." she rubbed her arm sheepishly, "a little run-down." That was the nicest way she could think to phrase it.

Tendou hummed quietly under his breath, considering it. "I think those can sometimes be the best places if you give them a chance." He snapped his fingers, but the soft noise was amplified in a cramped, musty room like that, making Maeko slightly flinch. _"Hidden gem_ would be the word for it."

Maeko glanced around the room, trying her best to see it the way Tendou did. Her imagination must've not been as strong.

Tendou's game came to an early end. He groaned in agitation, assumedly about his score, before turning to the side to face Maeko.

 _He has to fold his legs into the chair to fit into it properly,_ Maeko noticed with a hint of amusement.

"It isn't for everybody, but I promise the quiet will grow on you after a while. Y'know, more time alone with your thoughts and all that." Tendou held his pointer fingers to both of his temples, spinning them in wide circles.

Maeko's eyes widened. Was _that_ supposed to be what his thoughts looked like? Spinning, dizzying circles?

"What do you think about here?" She asked, still unconvinced that an arcade that smelled this... _damp_ could serve as such an important place for self-reflection or deep thought.

Tendou didn't answer immediately. She wondered if it was a heavier question than she expected it to be, then immediately felt bad for probing into places she had no right to.

He suddenly turned back to the game in front of him, a single finger hovering over the start button. With his other hand, he reached over to Maeko's game and did the same thing. "I'll answer your question only after you've played a couple of games with me, how about that?"

Maeko stiffened. She didn't like to play games because they were stressful. They always seemed to end with people cursing at either their screens or each other over their headphone sets.

She formed a polite refusal on the tip of her tongue, but it evaporated into thin air as soon as her eyes found his.

He looked _hopeful._ No other word struck her quite as fittingly.

For the first time since knowing him—or, perhaps, knowing him from a comfortable and wary distance that was hardly knowing him at all—she couldn't understand what there was to be so afraid of or bothered by.

She nodded her head, releasing a shaky breath. "Sure."

The look on Maeko's face must've been quite interesting as she came to that realization, because the corner of Tendou's lip twisted into the smallest, most unnoticeable of smiles as he pressed the start buttons at the same time.

But she noticed it. 

"Looks to me like you've already started to figure out the answer."


	8. I KNOW YOU'RE JUST LIKE ME

Time passed in slow motion.

Or maybe it was faster than it ever went before.

It was suddenly late. The sole window in the place responsible for all traces of natural light was now pitch black. If not for the arcade games letting off a faint glow in shades of purple, pink, and blue, Maeko would be hunched over an air hockey table with Tendou in total and utter darkness.

That was a frightening thought if ever there was one; or, at least, the Maeko she had been up until now would've ordinarily felt afraid.

Right then and there, in that perfectly calm and _fun_ moment, surrounded by the dimmest and yet most beautiful colours she had ever seen, with a boy she'd never really _seen_ until now, she felt like a different person.

A person who did not stutter over every other word when she was standing too close to anyone but Ayume.

A person who did not leap out of her skin at the accidental brush of a shoulder against hers while walking down the hallway to class.

Her shoulder brushed against Tendou's just then as he leaned onto the air hockey table to intercept a puck she sent bouncing against both walls. He glanced to the side to look at her, smiling with his eyes and mouth, and the two of them laughed loudly and purely because they weren't even playing this game properly.

Tendou had explained how they were supposed to stand at either end and defend their goals, but Maeko thought it'd be more entertaining to see who could score the most goals by accident from the sides of the table.

Tendou agreed wholeheartedly which was how they ended up side-by-side-a-little-too-close sending pucks into the sides of the table with no real purpose in mind.

Maeko ricocheted the last puck on the table into the far right corner and, by happenstance, it somehow ended up in the goal on the opposite end.

Tendou turned to her, eyes wide. "You're a natural. A true champion of air hockey."

She snickered into the palm of her hand, eyes closed. "It's thanks to you I've been able to discover where my true talent lies."

Maeko missed the fleeting moment when Tendou's cheeks flushed a pale shade of pink, glancing sheepishly to the side in a show of embarrassment far more befitting Maeko's character than his own.

By the time she opened her eyes again the moment was already gone. "What's next?"

Tendou did a sweep of the arcade. "We've played every single game this arcade has to offer."

Maeko did a sweep, as well, in disbelief. "Already? What time is it even?"

"Late." Tendou answered simply, gesturing to the window.

She stared at him in disapproving silence for the brief and useless answer, earning a mischievous half-smirk.

"I had no idea how much time was going by. I have to get home. My parents are probably going to _kill_ me." Maeko absentmindedly patted her pockets and glanced around the room, making sure all her things were in check.

Maeko ran over to the spaceship game, grabbing her backpack out of the seat. "Does this place ever close?"

"Not for me." Tendou said, going around the room to turn off the games. "I know a guy."

"You _know_ a guy?" Maeko repeated stiffly.

Tendou shrugged.

"That sounds a little sketchy." Maeko commented, cautiously eyeing his side profile as he ambled around the room.

He shrugged again.

"Right." She said under her breath, not meaning for him to hear. She was surprised how quickly the atmosphere in the room had changed, darkened.

He felt like a stranger again.

After Tendou turned off the last game, he bolted upright and spun a fast-paced circle to face Maeko. For a moment, they simply stared at each other from across the room.

He pointed at her. "I owe you an answer."

"Huh?" She answered dumbly. She was suddenly back to feeling shy and out of place.

"Earlier on, you asked what I think about here."

 _Oh._ She'd forgotten all about it.

Maeko shook her head uneasily. "That's okay. You don't have to tell me. I think I might've figured it out on my own, anyway."

She recalled sitting close to him, looking him in the eye, and genuinely believing that there was nothing to be afraid of.

For some reason, she didn't know if she felt that way anymore.

But she forced herself to remember that feeling, to not forget its existence, to not disregard that it _happened_ and it was _real._

Tendou took a step across the room, watching her very carefully.

Maeko, with some effort, steeled her emotions and didn't flinch.

Tendou continued this deliberately slow, steady approach until he was standing in front of her again. One of his hands rested on top of the air hockey table, his fingers inches from brushing against hers. Her fingers curled up to subconsciously create more distance, but she didn't remove her hand from the table.

"Do you ever feel tired?" He asked.

Maeko couldn't keep the surprise out of her expression. The question completely caught her off guard. "I-I mean, everybody feels tired at the end of the day."

He smiled sadly.

Maeko knew he didn't mean it quite so literally, but to think about it in any other way felt like an impossibly high obstacle to overcome.

"Do _you_ ever feel tired?" She returned the question, wondering if he would approach it from a different angle—quietly hoping he wouldn't.

"Not really." He replied simply, easily. "Not as much as I used to, anyway, which I think is a good thing—" his eyes flitted through hers very quickly, "—but I stopped hiding from what I was a long time ago."

The indirect accusation twisted into her, cutting deep.

He did everything but _say_ it.

The way his eyes lingered for just a split second before he looked away again. The way his forced, casual body language didn't suit the weight of his words.

She wanted to deny it.

Yet she never felt so seen—seen _through._

This boy, this _random_ boy who threw her over his shoulders the first time they met and made her feel a rollercoaster of good and bad emotions every day since, was essentially calling her a fake and she could do nothing but stare at him, dumbfounded and self-conscious.

Maeko took an unnecessarily long exhale to frantically clear her mind. _"Who_ you are."

Tendou tried to maintain a neutral expression, but she saw how hard it was for him. "Hm?"

It was his turn to be seen through. Maeko, with an uncharacteristic hint of stubbornness, wanted to see how much he liked it.

 _"Who_ you are, not _what._ You're not an object, Tendou."

It was supposed to be a nice thing to say, a friendly reminder, but Tendou looked like Maeko might as well have ripped the skin cleanly off his face, eyes so wide that they were on the verge of popping right out of their sockets.

Was that a _realization_ for him?

"Should I walk you home?" He asked, changing the subject.

"No," Maeko answered a little too quickly, "I'll manage."

Truthfully, she was more afraid of how this conversation would continue than she was of walking home alone in the dark.

Maeko paused after she opened the door, glancing over her shoulder. "Goodnight, Tendou."

"Goodnight, uh—" He awkwardly pulled on the end of his long-sleeved shirt, "—I'll see you around?"

She inwardly shuddered. _Why did he have to look so hopeful?_

"Yeah," she muttered, knowing Ayume would have an earful to say about it if she did. "You'll see me around."


	9. FLASHBACK*

**[TW REMINDER: Contains themes of bullying and verbal abuse. Please skip if you'd prefer to avoid this type of content, thanks!]**

\---

Maeko didn't know what came over her. Her parents sent her to the store for a couple of small items, like toilet paper for the bathroom and a new bottle of dish soap, and she used the little money leftover to buy a box of dark blue hair dye.

The girl on the front of the box looked so _beautiful_ with bright, coloured hair. Maeko held it up beside her face in the mirror, admiring it, wondering if it would make her beautiful too.

A store clerk walked by and complimented Maeko's choice, telling her it would look amazing.

Flustered, Maeko thanked the store clerk. Perhaps it was just their job to say stuff like that to customers to push merchandise, but it was exactly the push she needed to add it to her cart in the off chance they actually meant it.

As soon as Maeko got home, she locked herself in the bathroom and ripped open the box. She decided to test it out first on a small strip of her bangs just in case she didn't like it.

Thirty minutes later, the dye was washed out and Maeko was staring at her reflection with stars in her eyes. It was a mesmerizing dark shade of blue. She thought it complimented her green eyes and pale skin a lot nicer than the blonde.

But then there was a knock on the door.

"Maeko, what's taking so long in there? I hope you're not wasting water." It was her father, and he sounded angry.

Maeko couldn't open the door. What was she thinking? Her parents were going to throw a fit when they saw what she'd done to her hair.

"Open this door, Maeko!" Her father's voice was getting louder and more hostile.

Maeko wrapped her hair in a towel in a rush to hide the blue strip of hair and then tentatively opened the door.

Her father scrutinized her carefully. After a tense moment of silence, he pressed his finger against the towel near her forehead. Maeko held her breath when she saw the hint of blue dye staining his finger.

"What have you done to this towel? It's ruined."

He roughly grabbed the towel and yanked it off Maeko's head. Her long hair cascaded around her face with the blue strip in plain sight.

"Your _hair,_ Maeko. Why is it _blue?"_

Maeko opened her mouth to answer, but she was given no time.

"Honey, come take a look at this!"

"What is it?" Maeko's mother rounded the corner and gasped. "Oh goodness. Why on earth would you do this to your hair?" She softly grabbed a hold of the blue stand, holding it pinched between two fingers midair as if it was poisonous.

Maeko struggled to explain herself. "I thought it would look nice. I thought—"

"You thought _wrong."_ Her father cut in. "Wash it out at once."

"I can't." Maeko answered, barely above a whisper.

"Excuse me?"

She lifted her eyes to her father's, wincing at his facial expression. "I can't wash it out. It's permanent dye."

"Well isn't that lovely." Her mother chimed in with a sarcastic sigh. Without another word, she spun on her heel and returned to the kitchen.

"Now you'll _permanently_ look ridiculous. It's a good thing you've got Ayume or else the middle schoolers would sink their teeth into you. Why can't you be more like her?"

Each sentence delivered its own unique blow.

"Go to your room and finish your homework. You'll be called when dinner is ready." Her father said with finality, grumbling incoherently to himself as he followed Maeko's mother into the kitchen.

\---

Maeko walked into school that morning with her hood pulled over her head. She tried everything she could think of to make the blue strip of hair look nice, but her parents' scolding had her convinced that she looked terrible and made a mistake. If she could get to classes early and beg the teachers to let her keep her hood on, then hopefully—

Someone tugged Maeko's hood down from behind. "What are you hiding?"

The person circled Maeko like a vulture, eyes widening as soon as her blue strip of hair came into sight. "You dyed your hair? Why did you only dye one strip? Of course it'll look embarrassing if you do it like that."

Maeko's tormentor raised their voice, gesturing some of their friends closer. "Come take a look at this, everyone!"

She was surrounded in the blink of an eye. Maeko shrunk beneath their stares, her ears filled with the sound of laughter at her expense. It was elementary school all over again. She'd never felt smaller.

"Back off!"

It really was elementary school all over again because the same girl was coming to her rescue.

Ayume scoffed, glaring at their turned backs as they went back to whatever they were doing before attention was called to Maeko. "Seriously, do none of you have anything better to do with your lives?"

She was still muttering profanities under her breath as she whipped around to face Maeko. She used her hand to lift Maeko's chin, looking from her eyes to the blue strip of hair hanging in her face.

"Thanks, Ayume." Maeko said weakly. She was feeling too embarrassed to say anything more meaningful than that.

Ayume made a _tsk_ sound with her tongue, disappointed. "For a person who hates to be the center of attention, you really know how to draw a lot of it to yourself, don't you?"

Ayume tucked the blue strand behind Maeko's ear, trying to make it blend into the rest of her blonde locks. "If you don't want people to laugh at you than you can't go around dying your hair and then being too afraid to own it while you walk the halls. Make more careful decisions, okay? As much as I want to be, I can't always be here to hold your hand."

With a small smile probably meant to be encouraging, Ayume left Maeko's side to head to her first class.

Maeko knew that Ayume meant well but, for some reason, her advice was no less painful than the bullying. She made it sound like it was the easiest thing in the world to do with no real consideration for why it might've been difficult in the first place.

At times like this, Maeko caught herself quietly loathing Ayume's confidence. Especially after her father compared the two of them and all but wished out loud for a different daughter.

Maeko heard a group of girls laughing somewhere nearby. She shrank into her hoodie and then rushed down the hall to class, immediately assuming it had something to do with her.


	10. EVEN IN A CROWDED ROOM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains themes of underage drinking and descriptions of a panic attack. Please skip if you'd prefer to avoid this type of content, thanks! My description of the panic attack is based on possible symptoms I read about online, so I apologize if it seems unrealistic to anybody who actually experiences these. My intention is not to misrepresent anything!

"It'll just be you and a couple friends I've made on my volleyball team. I think you've met them before. Remember—" Ayume, for what felt like the billionth time, was going through the details of her upcoming birthday party with Maeko.

Maeko had been listening to one version or another of this plan since Monday morning, and it was now Friday afternoon with Ayume's party only hours away.

Maeko was certain that she could recite Ayume's lines before she even said them, but she still listened and nodded where it was appropriate without complaint. This happened every single year, so Maeko had grown used to it.

She couldn't get upset with Ayume for it, either. Everything Ayume did was for Maeko's benefit, and this was no exception.

Ayume knew that parties, especially ones with big crowds or drinking, which was a lot more likely now that they were high school students, would not mix well with Maeko's quiet and introverted personality. Ayume retold her birthday plan, from the time it was starting to the names and personalities of the people she invited, to reinforce that Maeko didn't need to stress over attending.

Maeko didn't stress, either, because even if it _was_ a little tiring to hear the same thing over and over again, Ayume knew what worked and what didn't.

Maeko often wondered, with a little unease, if Ayume knew her better than she knew herself.

So Maeko smiled at the end of Ayume's likely rehearsed speech like she had every other day this week. "Sounds great, Ayume. I'll be there."

\---

Maeko's mother _graciously_ lent her full-length mirror to Maeko as she got ready for Ayume's party. It was her attempt at being kind and supportive but, as always, it had the opposite effect because it added pressure for Maeko to meet her mother's expectations.

On her bed, Maeko's mother laid out a black dress that shined when it was held under the light. She bought it for Maeko last year, but Maeko never wore it because it was too revealing. She laid it on the bed for Maeko as an _option,_ but it felt more like a silent command to, at the very least, try it on and then parade it through the kitchen for her mother's critical eyes to pick apart and perfect.

Maeko sighed at her reflection.

The dress was beautiful but her subconscious, somewhat painfully, kept telling it her it would look better on Ayume who had a slimmer, more athletic build.

Maeko thumbed through her closet, pausing to let her fingers wrap around the comfortable material of one of her usual grey knitted sweaters. She was seconds away from exchanging the dress for her sweater, but then her mother's shrill voice summoned her from the bottom of the stairs: "Maeko, what's taking so long up there?"

She probably wasn't meant to hear the next part, but her mother was never any good at keeping her voice down: "I hope it didn't get stuck. Oh, honey, we'll have to put Maeko on a diet if that's the case. How would you feel about eating more—"

Maeko clasped her hands over her ears, starting blankly into the mirror. She didn't want to hear the rest.

She took a moment to collect herself and then, with a long, calming breath, forced herself to descend the stairs in the black dress. Maeko shyly peeked her head into the kitchen, clearing her throat for her parents' attention.

Her mother immediately turned away from the dishes she'd been scrubbing in the sink, eyes shining. "Oh, it looks _wonderful!_ See, Maeko, this is much more flattering than your usual wardrobe."

Her father grumbled irritably without turning away from his newspaper. "It isn't appropriate for school."

Her mother made a harsh, scolding noise with her lips. "Of course not, but this is a _party_ dear. It's natural to dress up a little."

She adjusted the straps and then proceeded to smooth out any wrinkles in the fabric down the length of Maeko's body. "Speaking of..."

Maeko braced herself for the worst.

Her mother was by far the less grumpy of her parents, but those eyes of hers could be colder than ice and twice as harsh. That was precisely the description Maeko would use for the way her mother analyzed her face and hair in that moment.

She ran her fingers through Maeko's signature blonde ponytail. "It wouldn't hurt to style your hair occasionally. You always have it thrown back like this which makes your face look rounder. You could fix that with makeup, of course, but you aren't even wearing mascara—didn't you see the tube I left on your bedside table?"

"No, I didn't see it." Maeko lied through her teeth.

Her mother sighed, disappointed. Maeko thought the worst was over. She couldn't have let her guard down at a worse moment.

"How are you going to compare to Ayume like this?"

The words were meant as an aside for her father and, to Maeko's disappointment—but certainly not to her surprise—he nodded his head, eyes still glued to his newspaper.

Maeko stiffly walked out of the kitchen. She knelt to pull on her shoes, but her eyes were so fuzzy with tears that she was having some difficulty tying the laces.

"Have fun! Don't stay out too late." Her mother shouted cheerfully from the kitchen.

That was when Maeko's tears started falling. She didn't bother muffling her sniffles because her mother had already turned on the tap to continue washing the dishes, completely oblivious to the impact she'd had on her daughter, crying in the next room as she attempted to tie her shoes.

Pathetic.

\---

Maeko, for the first time in her life, was actually looking _forward_ to Ayume's party, whether it was with strangers or not, because anything sounded better than being at home.

Or so she thought.

She could hear music before she even stepped onto Ayume's driveway. There were small groups of people in conversation all around the house which gave Maeko the impression that there were more people here than a few of her volleyball friends. As she approached the front door, she could feel pairs of eyes roaming the length of her body. _This stupid dress,_ she thought bitterly, subconsciously pulling it a little farther down her legs.

Maeko's hand hesitated on the doorknob, but she didn't even have to open it because someone on the other side of the door already did. Maeko stepped aside with a squeak of alarm as a pair of tall boys appeared in front of her. They looked her up and down, smiling, before exiting the house to join one of the groups of people outside. A shiver of unease ran down the length of her spine. Maeko bolted into the house and eagerly closed the door behind her to create a physical barrier between her and the two boys, but inside was a different battleground entirely.

Maeko always thought Ayume's house was unnecessarily large, but there were more people inside than could comfortably walk the halls without bumping into one another.

"Maeko, you made it!"

She would recognize Ayume's voice anywhere.

Maeko sharply spun in the direction of Ayume's voice, relieved, but that joyous feeling was incredibly short-lived.

Ayume's arms wrapped around Maeko's neck in a tight hug and, with a start, Maeko realized her breath smelled horribly of alcohol.

Maeko was the first to pull away from the embrace. "A-Ayume... you told me this was going to be a _small_ party."

Ayume squinted, shaking her head. "Sorry, I can't hear you—the music is too loud!"

"Yeah, it _is_ too loud." Maeko agreed. She was about to repeat her first statement, but Ayume interrupted her before she could.

"What are you wearing?" Ayume asked in disbelief. "Let me guess, your mom?"

Ayume rolled her eyes, pointing upstairs. "Go into my room and find something more comfortable, okay?"

In that fleeting moment, Maeko almost forgave the party. "Thank you, Ayume, but I still want to know how—" Again, she was unable to finish her sentence.

A swarm of girls from the volleyball team crowded Ayume, chattering loudly, and before Maeko knew what was happening they were eagerly pulling on Ayume's arms to take her elsewhere in the house.

"W-wait!" Maeko protested.

Ayume gave her a helpless look, raising her voice to shout one last thing at Maeko before she was pulled around a corner. "There are drinks in the kitchen! Help yourself!"

Maeko's mouth hung open. How drunk did Ayume have to be to think Maeko would help herself to unattended alcohol? Or _any_ alcohol for that matter.

At the very least, Ayume offered a change of clothes, and Maeko had every intention of taking her up on that.

Just as Maeko was about to head upstairs—and, hell, probably barricade herself in Ayume's bedroom for the rest of the night—her path was intercepted by an unfamiliar face.

"Hello, beautiful." His breath, like Ayume's, reeked of alcohol. He squeezed Maeko's shoulder before running his hand down the length of her arm.

Maeko shuddered. "E-excuse me."

"Where are you going?" He asked. His expression looked innocent enough, but the way his hand squeezed her arm a little tighter made her think otherwise.

She wanted to say something a little more _aggressive,_ like Ayume would've, so he'd leave her alone, but all she could manage was a shaky: "Please let me pass."

"She looks pale." A familiar voice spoke from just over Maeko's shoulder and, with eyes wide, she turned around to see none other than Ushijima looming behind her.

It was three simple words that, coming from anyone else, might've seemed like an aside that could be brushed off easily enough; but after Ushijima and the unfamiliar boy stared at each other for a while, he released his grip on Maeko's arm and, with an incomprehensible profanity under his breath, left her standing on the stairs with Ushijima.

Maeko desperately wanted to thank him but, after hearing that she looked pale, she started to feel a little queasy and unbalanced.

Ushijima took notice of this. He glanced over her head where a boy with light brown hair was sitting on the stairs with his face buried into his cellphone, seeming antisocial and uninterested in his surroundings. "Shirabu, can you find the kitchen and grab Maeko a glass of water?"

He glanced up from his cellphone, carefully eying Maeko before getting out of his seat. "I'll be right back." Her condition was deemed poor enough to warrant his help, so it seemed.

"Sit down." Ushijima said, gesturing to the stairs.

His words were gentle enough but, because it was _Ushijima,_ who was practically unreadable and emotionless as far as Maeko was concerned, she interpreted it like a command and shakily collapsed onto the stairs.

Another boy, this time with shaggy grey hair, came around the corner and glanced between Ushijima and Maeko. She recognized him from a while back as one of the so-called _beasts_ Ayume scolded for invading her personal space.

"What's wrong with her?" He asked Ushijima, pointing at Maeko with a thumb.

"I'm not sure." Ushijima answered, crouching so he was eye-level with Maeko. "Can you keep people off the stairs for a while, Semi?"

"Sure thing." Semi replied, crossing his arms like a bodyguard. He proceeded to grimace at anyone who drew too close.

"Can you explain how you're feeling, Maeko?" Ushijima asked.

"I-I'm cold." She said, using her hands to brush up and down her arms. She also felt faint, but she couldn't be sure that wasn't simply because Ushijima knew her by name, so she chose to withhold that information for now.

"But you're sweating." Ushijima responded matter-of-factly.

Maeko's eyes widened, suddenly embarrassed on top of everything else. The one and only time she'd probably ever have a one-on-one conversation with Ushijima, and she was _sweating._

"Nobody is allowed on the stairs!" Semi said, holding out a hand to stop Shirabu from passing.

Maeko couldn't see Shirabu's expression because Ushijima's and Semi's bodies were blocking her view, but from his cold tone of voice she could only imagine it looked deeply unenthused.

"Ushijima asked me to get water. Move." Shirabu shoved his way past Semi, holding out the glass of water for Maeko to take. "It's room temperature. I didn't make it too hot or cold just in case it'd shock your system."

Maeko numbly reached for the glass of water, barely listening. She forced herself to take a sip because Ushijima, Semi, and Shirabu were all watching her closely. As soon as the liquid hit her stomach it made a grumbling noise of protest. She felt gross.

"Perhaps she needs fresh air." Ushijima commented, getting nods of approval from Semi and Shirabu.

Next thing Maeko knew, each of the three boys were holding out their hands to help her stand and guide her outside. She appreciated the gesture, she really did, but in that moment she was feeling deeply overwhelmed by the fact that three tall, athletic boys were swarming around her when all she wanted was a little peace and quiet.

Maeko abruptly stood up, trying to keep from swaying on the spot as dizziness started to cloud the corners of her vision. "N-no thank you, I just need to lie down for a minute."

She excused herself before any of them could offer to walk her there, racing up the stairs as fast as she could without falling over and making a fool of herself.

She made it to Ayume's bedroom without incident and slammed the door shut behind her. All of that running made her feel ten times worse, so she could do little more than collapse ungracefully onto the ground, her back pressed up against the side of Ayume's bed.

Maeko pulled her knees up and then buried her face in between them. She still felt cold, but she could also feel the thin layer of sweat on her forehead that Ushijima pointed out. Her breaths were short and unsatisfying which made it feel like she was fighting for air. That feeling worsened her panic. It was an endless cycle.

This wasn't Maeko's first panic attack, but that didn't make it any easier to cope with.

She was so preoccupied with trying to catch her breath that the rest of the world faded into unimportant background noise.

She didn't notice when the bedroom door opened, or when someone walked inside and quietly closed it again behind them.


	11. BABY, IT'S JUST ME AND YOU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains descriptions of a panic attack. Please skip if you'd prefer to avoid this type of content, thanks! Again, I do not intend to misrepresent anything!

Maeko became distantly aware of the person's presence when they sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of her and, by the time they gently rested a hand on her lower leg and squeezed, there was no longer any feasible way for her to deny that she had company. Regardless, Maeko didn't lift her head from where it was buried into her knees.

Looking at the person meant allowing them to see her like this and, quite frankly, she was already feeling embarrassed enough for one evening. Ushijima and his friends had probably told people what happened. It was perhaps out of worry for her well-being but, even then, it would make it harder for her to show her face in front of all those people with them knowing that she couldn't attend one party, her _best friend's_ party, without getting overwhelmed.

Her struggle to catch her breath was worsened by an onset of choking sobs, muffled by the inner elbow of her arm but not any less loud in her own ears.

"I-I'm s-sorry." She managed between gasps for air. It felt like she was burdening this person who had sat with her and remained there even as she persistently shut them out, trying to deal with her attack on her own.

She didn't yet know how true that description was.

"One." The person said.

Maeko didn't understand at first.

But she thought she might've recognized his voice. It sounded like Tendou, but the seriousness of his tone, so lacking in his usual spark of humour in all things, was disconcerting to her in its unfamiliarity.

"Two."

Maeko started gasping for air in short, hiccup-like intervals, but as soon as it settled down and she managed to take a quick breath, he said: "Three."

She realized he was counting her breaths.

Did she manage three of them already? Before hearing the numbers, Maeko was convinced that it was still zero.

"Four?" She rasped, her throat making a deep, menacing _wheeze._

When he counted five for her, Maeko caught a hint of the lightness and humour that she had been talking about before, probably a result of the awkward lilt at the end of her four, making it sound like he needed to confirm that four was, indeed, after three in the line.

That was when she _knew_ it was him.

Maeko couldn't decide on a name for the feeling that stirred in the pit of her stomach. It was difficult to decipher much of anything in her current state but, no matter what it was, she let him count with her well into the twenties until, finally, her breaths felt normal again.

His hand never left her leg. Even when Maeko finally lifted her head off her knees, looking at him through wet, red-rimmed eyes, it was still there.

"How did you know that would help?" Maeko asked.

The question seemed to make Tendou reminiscence about something. "Let's just say that strategy has gotten me out of a bad situation once or twice."

Maeko nodded, knowing better than to pry into personal details that weren't being offered up willingly.

"Well, thank you." Maeko said.

The apology felt stiff and unnatural on the tip of her tongue, but not because it was undeserved—she was just feeling stiff and unnatural altogether. She had been subconsciously playing with the thin straps of her dress ever since she left her house.

Which, of course, Tendou noticed. His perceptiveness wasn't reserved for volleyball.

He gestured to her dress. "You look uncomfortable."

Maeko immediately stopped playing with the straps, staring at him in deathly silence.

"N-not to say you look bad!" He raised his hands up in innocence, desperately trying to recover.

His hand finally left her leg. She noticed how _cold_ it felt now.

She never heard him stammer over his words before, either.

"I would _never_ say that! You _always_ look good! I-I just meant—"

Maeko stood up and walked over to Ayume's closet, cutting him off mid-sentence to thumb through the many options she had for a change of clothes.

Tendou thought he was even worse off than he originally feared, continuing to ramble in a similar fashion to her turned back. Something along the lines of...

"The dress is fine! It's more than fine! You don't need to change! You can change if you _want_ to, _but only if you want to I—"_

Truthfully, Maeko just didn't want him to see the way she was smiling.

She spun around to face him again, holding up a pair of Ayume's dark blue jeans.

Tendou obliviously gave a thumbs up.

Maeko rolled her eyes. "I meant turn around."

The look on his face was priceless, opening and closing his mouth in search of a response before, with a sharp _click_ of his teeth, he stiffly turned around and then placed his hands over his eyes.

Did she just _surprise_ the guess monster?

It was an amusing thought that momentarily deepened her smile into a full-face, goofy grin. She reminded herself of Ayume saying it wasn't supposed to be a compliment but, in that moment, Maeko certainly meant it as one.

Maeko changed into the pair of pants as quickly as humanely possible but, for some _odd_ reason that she refused to spare too much thought, she kept tripping over her own two feet and fumbling ungracefully with the buttons.

The tension in that bedroom was unbelievably high.

"Don't peek!" Maeko scolded, thinking she might've saw him turning his head.

"I'm not!" Tendou responded in a panic, tightening the grips of his hands on his face.

Maeko breathed a sigh of relief when the pants were finally on, but she still hadn't found a shirt.

She groaned as she flipped through the rows upon rows of tank tops, saying as an aside to herself: "Where does Ayume keep her sweaters?"

Maeko let out a yip of alarm as, out of nowhere, a sweater fell out of the sky and landed on top of her head. She pulled it off her head and sharply spun around, planning to scold Tendou once again for peeking, but he was in the exact same position—just with one less layer.

He was still wearing a thin white t-shirt, but the black sweatshirt he had on over top of it was now grasped in the palm of her hand.

Maeko stood there dumbly.

She stood there until Tendou awkwardly cleared his throat and asked: "Are you done yet?"

"J-just a minute." Maeko frantically tried to put on the sweatshirt, but it took a little longer than it should've because she accidentally stuck her head through the arm hole twice. "Okay, you can turn around now."

Tendou's arms dropped to his sides, using his long legs to scoot a half-circle on the floor to face Maeko again. "Sheesh, girls really _do_ take a long time to get ready."

Maeko shook her head in disapproval of his complaining, but she couldn't help but laugh a little, as well. Tendou drastically changed the atmosphere from the dark, devastating thing it had been before to something lighthearted and _easy._

"Can I ask what happened?" Tendou's eyes were big and unassuming. He made her feel safe talking about something that ordinarily got stuck in the back of her throat.

Maeko, with a heavy sigh, approached and re-claimed her seat across from him on the floor. "Ayume has been reassuring me all week that this party was going to be small, so when it wasn't I guess I just got overwhelmed on top of—" she paused, realizing Tendou didn't know the rest of her story at home. "—everything else."

This was usually the part where Ayume, Maeko's only confidant until now, tried to explain that Maeko worried too much, but Tendou surprised her.

He kept doing that.

"Tell me about it. You can hardly walk down the hallway without bumping into somebody." Tendou threw his head back in annoyance.

Maeko's eyes were shining. It was refreshing to talk about it with someone who shared her perspective. "Yes, exactly!"

Tendou leaned forward, resting his elbows on his crossed knees and then his chin in the palm of his hand. "Parties are overrated."

"Then why did you come?" Maeko questioned, mimicking his position. With a small smile, she added with a hint of amusement: "Surely not to hide away in the upstairs bedroom."

Tendou returned her small smile, but the look quickly dissolved into one of mild bitterness. "Believe it or not, Ushijima made me. He's the reason most of the boys' volleyball team is here tonight."

That might've been the most surprising part of the entire evening. "Ushijima doesn't strike me as a party-person."

Tendou nodded his head in agreement. "Something is up with him lately, but I'm going to get to the bottom of it soon enough. I'm on the right trail, I can feel it." He scrunched his nose up like a hunting dog that just caught a scent, a look of determination in his eye.

Tendou abruptly stood up, offering Maeko his hand to pull her up too. She gawked at the gesture for a moment, wide-eyed, before tentatively lowering her hand into his. The second their skin touched, Tendou wrapped his fingers around Maeko's entire hand and then pulled her off the ground with one swift movement.

Maeko shyly pulled her hand out of his after she recollected her bearings. It felt warm and tingly.

Tendou gestured outside through the window. "How about we ditch this party neither of us wanted to be at in the first place?"

"Through the _window?"_ Maeko gaped.

Tendou shrugged. "Front door works too."

His expression was unreadable. Maeko couldn't figure out for the life of her if he was being serious or not.

"Where would we go?" She asked hesitantly, noting how dark it was already.

"I've got something in mind." Tendou walked over to the bedroom door and turned the knob, but he glanced over his shoulder once more before swinging it open. "That is, if you trust me to provide an evening of maximum entertainment to make up for the way it has been going so far."

It sounded like a statement, but the look in his eye made Maeko wonder if it was also a question, an indirect way of confirming her trust in him or lack thereof.

A combination of instinct and her conversations with Ayume made _no_ feel like the correct answer, but every time she tried to form the syllables on her tongue, she was brought back to their night together at the arcade.

She wouldn't mind another night like that.

Maeko nodded slowly. There was the hint of a smile on his face as he opened the door, but it was the small ones that always seemed to be the brightest.

Maeko followed close behind Tendou, using his tall, but slim frame as a barrier from the rest of the party as they made their way to the front door. They luckily made it down the stairs without incident but, as they were passing by the living room, Maeko made the mistake of glancing in and making direct eye contact with Ayume, who was sitting on the couch between one of her teammates and Ushijima.

When Ayume's eyes found Maeko—or, more importantly, the person Maeko was following—they widened in a mixture of shock and suspicion. At their distance from each other, as well as Maeko's fast pace through the house, there was no time for them to have a conversation, but Maeko could've sworn Ayume's mouth opened to shout over the music.

Ayume probably did, but there was a front door slammed shut between them long before there was any hope of Maeko hearing it.

Maeko folded her arms across her chest in an attempt to fend off some of the cold, crisp night air, briskly following Tendou down the sidewalk.

She had no clue if that was a good idea, but a small part of her—a part that, lately, seemed to be growing—was beyond excited to find out.


	12. TAKE MY HAND AND RUN THROUGH PLAYLAND

After two buses and another hour of walking on foot, Maeko started to wonder if she made a mistake.

Her eyes were glued to the back of Tendou's head, watchful and a little suspicious.

But then he turned his head to throw a quick glance over his shoulder, and the smile on his face was so _excited_ and _uplifting._ "We're almost there."

Her expression softened. She internally scolded herself for being so harsh and judgemental with him at every possible turn. It was startling how quickly everybody, herself included, seemed able to find and then latch onto the worst in him.

Even in the dark, there was no mistaking the gigantic gateway, with the letters P-L-A-Y-L-A-N-D scribbled across it in harsh red ink, that the two of them were approaching. A shiver ran down the length of Maeko's spine as they passed underneath it and into the eerily quiet, abandoned amusement park.

Maeko lived here her entire life, but she'd never heard of this place.

Then again, she'd also never heard of the arcade, but she ended up enjoying herself there once she gave it a chance.

 _But this,_ her brain countered aggressively, _has a far more foreboding and creepy aura to it._

Tendou spun a full circle with his arms in the air, stopping once he was facing Maeko on the second spin. "We have arrived! What do you think?"

Maeko glanced over her shoulder because she got that creepy feeling that she was being watched from an unseen corner.

"Why did you bring me here?" She asked with hint of distress. It was just a _hint,_ practically unnoticeable, but she got the impression that Tendou easily picked it up.

"You didn't like the loud music or the big crowd at Ayume's party." Tendou explained, slapping one finger at a time against his opposite palm to count each thing she disliked. "I figured a real amusement park, with even _louder_ music and an even _bigger_ crowd, would just give you another panic attack."

He acknowledged her breakdown in the spare bedroom so nonchalantly, as if there was nothing unusual or strange about it. His logic, although sensible enough, was offered so straightforwardly, with no awkward avoidance of what happened to Maeko, no treatment or judgement of her panic as something unspeakable or bad, that she couldn't help but _laugh._

He was refreshing.

Suddenly eager to see what he had in mind for this place, Maeko walked up beside him, close and comfortable. Tendou had to tilt his head down to get a proper look at her and, when he did, those big, scary red eyes were gentle and subdued, half-closed like a cat waking up from its afternoon nap.

**[Brief intermission to appreciate hair down Tendou.......... ok proceed]**

"What do you want to do?" Maeko was looking in every which direction, unsure where to start.

"Well," Tendou let out a long breath like he was similarly overwhelmed by the choices, but Maeko thought it must've been more along the lines of anticipation to choose. "Considering you liked to make your own rules for arcade games, I thought you might also enjoy narrating our own experiences of the rides."

"I'm not following." Maeko admitted.

"Come on," Tendou urged her farther into the park grounds with gentle nudges of his finger into the small of her back, "I'll show you."

\---

"Wow," Maeko said breathlessly, with eyes shining and her mouth agape in awe. "You can't beat this view."

"It's incredible," Tendou nodded his head in agreement, "the stars have never been so bright."

They exchanged a brief, sideways glance, eyes glittering with amusement.

They were sitting in the bottommost seats of the Ferris wheel where, ordinarily, an attendant would be loading people on to begin the ride. The view they were discussing would've been the beautiful, endless stretch of nighttime sky if they were in a functioning amusement park; but because this park was closed, and this Ferris wheel had no attendant to start it up, their view was an old, barely standing storage shed that was undoubtedly infested with mice.

Maeko, for a fleeting moment, broke character to stand up and peek through the rows of carts above them for a glimpse of the real sky.

Tendou, with a gasp, grabbed her arm and pulled her back into her seat. "Maeko, how unsafe! We must remain seated while the ride is in motion!"

He must've pulled her a little too roughly because, instead of returning to the seat she'd previously been in with plenty of breathing room between them, she fell directly into his lap.

Their faces were so close that the tip of her nose was brushing against his. Every muscle in her body told her to move, to do _something_ to get away, but she was frozen in place. The feeling of his hand wrapped around her back to keep her from falling out of his lap made her lower back tense up, on the verge of a spasm. If she squirmed, even to get more comfortable, he would undoubtedly move that hand—whether it was to help her get comfortable or help her move off.

She was afraid to find out which one would happen.

Or which one she _wanted_ to happen.

"O-oh." Maeko stuttered awkwardly, uselessly, forgetting how to speak.

The corners of his lips twisted into a small, almost shy half-smile, as if the real thing would frighten her off too quickly. "Oh?"

"H-hi." She managed, although not any less uselessly.

"Why hello there."

"Do you think I can maybe, u-uh..."

"Absolutely."

A handful of seconds later and Maeko was back in her own seat. Her feet were hanging over the edge of the seat to touch the ground like a pair of weights. She thought she'd most definitely fall over and face plant if she tried to stand right now.

She only glanced at Tendou through the corner of her eye, knowing her face must've been a bright shade of red.

"When did we get back on the ground?" Tendou glanced around the cart, bemused. "That ride was over way too quickly! Attendant—!" And then he was off, shouting at a Ferris wheel attendant that wasn't even there.

Maeko smiled gratefully at his turned back, peeling herself out of the cart and sluggishly following him to the next ride.

Any awkwardness she felt was gone by the time they reached the merry-go-round.

They each sat on a horse and narrated the up-and-down motions as it would've spun in slow circles, pretending they felt dizzy and couldn't walk straight when they hopped off.

Next, they sat in the back row of a rollercoaster called "The Rocket". Maeko threw her hands into the air and screamed like she would've as the rollercoaster launched from its highest point at top speed; Tendou, to her great amusement, frantically fanned her with his arms and blew into her face to mimic the sudden rush of wind that'd throw her hair back. It was their best narration yet, and the pair had to sit there for a couple of minutes afterwards to catch their breath from laughing so hard.

As they were walking through the park to locate their next target, Maeko rummaged through her pockets to find her cellphone. When she pulled it out and saw the time, as well as the several texts from Ayume and her parents, she gasped in alarm. "Oh my God, it's after 1AM!"

Tendou turned around, peering at the time.

"I have to go." Maeko mumbled sadly but, after seeing no reciprocation of her panic from Tendou, she asked: "Aren't your parents going to be worried too?"

He rummaged around for his cellphone. When he pulled it out and glanced at the screen, Maeko snuck a peek and saw that he had no messages or missed calls like she did. She tried to act casual, like she saw nothing, by the time he looked at her again.

He _smiled_ and, if she really _did_ see nothing, she would've believed it. "Yeah, I'd better get going too."

They walked to the exit together and, because it was so late, Tendou took the buses and walked with Maeko most of the way to her house without her asking.

When they were only a block away, Maeko stopped and turned to face him. "I should be good now. Thanks for coming all this way. I really hope it isn't too out of your way?"

Tendou shook his head. "No trouble at all."

Her heart sank a little when he evaded her question.

After saying goodnight, Maeko started to walk down the block. After a couple of steps, however, she sharply turned around to get another word in.

The urgency in her body language was mitigated when she saw him standing there, hardly having moved an inch.

She had to raise her voice a little to talk comfortably from the short distance. Normally, her voice would crack whenever she did that, but it was oddly easy this time around. "Why is it that I always lose track of time when I'm with you?"

She shook her head and feigned anger. Even from a distance and in the pitch black, she thought she saw him smirk a little.

Tendou dramatically raised his hands and, to her absolute horror, shouted at the top of his lungs with his head turned towards the sky. "We're enjoying life, baby!"

_Baby?_

_"Shhhhh!"_ Maeko held a finger to her lips, frantically silencing him. "Tendou! It's after 2AM!"

A light flickered on in a house across the street.

There was no time to address it. A bubble of laughter raised up her throat as she urged him to run with wild hand motions.

With a curt wave of his hand, Tendou took off down the block. Maeko, in the opposite direction, did the same.

Her heart was beating out of her chest by the time she reached her front door. The thought of getting seen, recognized, and yelled at by one of her neighbours on the street was...

Usually something that terrified her but, this time around, _exhilarating._

Maeko quietly opened the front door and shut it behind her.

She expected a light to be on.

She expected her parents to have fallen asleep on the couches in the living room while waiting for her to get home.

For her opening and closing the door to wake them up.

For them to scold her for staying out so late without answering their texts.

But the house was quiet, the lights were off, and her parents must've been sound asleep in their bed upstairs.

Confused, Maeko pulled out her phone to actually read the messages.

_AYUME, sent to MAEKO at 11:00PM_   
_Where did you go?_

_AYUME, sent to MAEKO at 11:05PM_   
_Hello?_

_MOM, sent to MAEKO at 11:22PM_   
_What time are you getting home?_

_AYUME, sent to MAEKO at 11:40PM_   
_Your mom texted me. I told her you're staying the night at my place and your phone died. Seriously, where are you? Text me back when you can. I hope you're safe._

_MOM, sent to MAEKO at 11:43PM_   
_Have fun sweetie._

Maeko sighed. That explained why her parents weren't waiting up, although she supposed she preferred it this way.

She was a little surprised that her mom bothered to text Ayume. Perhaps they _did_ care in their own weird, messed up way.

_MAEKO, sent to AYUME at 2:33AM_   
_I'm safe. Thanks for covering for me._

Ayume wasn't going to be satisfied with that explanation, but Maeko was too tired to deal with one of her best friend's lectures.

She climbed into bed and pulled the covers over her face, closing her eyes.

Her phone buzzed on her bedside table, but she ignored it.


	13. YOU KEEP ME UP AT NIGHT

Every Monday morning, Maeko busied herself in her locker until Ayume showed up to walk to their first class together. By now she had memorized every inch of its interior, down to every single scratch left behind by its past tenants, in an effort to keep her eyes fixated on something, _anything,_ until Ayume came to her rescue.

But on that particular Monday morning, Maeko made a drastic change to her routine. She wasn't waiting with her head buried inside her locker, staring at the same scratches that she stared at every other school day.

Instead, she waited beside Tendou's locker, actively scanning the hallways for a sign of his spiky red hair parting through the crowd of students.

She got a couple of _interesting_ looks while she waited, particularly from members of the boys and girls' volleyball teams who _knew_ it was Tendou's locker that she stood in front of, awkwardly clutching her school books to her chest. A couple of Ayume's friends, whom Maeko vaguely recognized from the party she would rather forget, started whispering to each other as they walked by. It made Maeko shift uncomfortably on the spot but, with a few calming breaths, she was able to mostly clear her mind of any anxiety about it.

The bell for their first class rang, but Tendou still hadn't showed up.

Maeko frowned, glancing in either direction once more. As much as she wanted to wait for him, she couldn't rationalize jeopardizing her perfect attendance. With a sigh, Maeko began the walk to class alone, deciding to try again later.

First class went about how Maeko was expecting it to.

Ayume questioned Maeko's whereabouts, confused by her not being at her locker as per usual, to which Maeko responded with a curt shrug of her shoulders.

 _That_ did not appease Ayume. If anything, it gave her a vengeance, glaring daggers into Maeko's side profile for the entire period even though the teacher had asked for her attention at the front of the room twice.

Maeko knew she was probably going to regret her coldness later when Ayume caught her alone but, in that moment, she didn't care, and it was an oddly uplifting and powerful feeling that she wasn't used to.

Truthfully, Maeko had been ignoring Ayume's texts ever since her brief, undetailed answer at 2:30AM when she was just getting home from the amusement park. She was feeling annoyed and hurt about Ayume's party and, even though it was a little uncharacteristically petty of Maeko to avoid mending things with her one and only friend, she already knew that Ayume was going to give her an earful about her choice in company that evening. Part of her didn't want to hear it.

Another part was afraid of what would happen when she did.

Thankfully, the teacher asked to speak with Ayume in private after class, undoubtedly regarding her lack of attention, and it gave Maeko the perfect opportunity to slip away unscathed

Maeko checked Tendou's locker between first and second period, but he didn't show up then, either.

At lunchtime, Tendou wasn't sitting with Ushijima like he usually was.

After school, Maeko's last hope was the boys' volleyball practice. She tentatively peeked her head inside the gymnasium, but she was interrupted by an abrupt, unexpected voice behind her before she could get a proper look.

"Do you need something?" Ushijima asked.

Maeko jumped in surprise, probably looking as pale as a ghost when she turned around to see Ushijima looming behind her. This wasn't the first time but, with a hearty sigh, Maeko sincerely hoped it would be the last.

"Oh, it's you." He recognized her from Ayume's party, but his eyes didn't widen in shock or curiosity like she expected them to. "I assume Tendou was helpful the other night?"

"Helpful?" Maeko repeated.

Ushijima didn't seem to understand the source of Maeko's confusion, but he still elaborated. "Tendou stopped us from following you upstairs after you excused yourself. He told us that he knew how to help you and then asked us to keep it to ourselves."

Maeko's eyes softened unbidden. She had been so worried that night about Ushijima and his friends spreading word around the party about what happened, even if it was out of a kind desire to get her more help, but obviously she had worried for nothing.

Tendou kept doing the right things. It was without her asking, and without her even _knowing_ they were right.

So _why_ could she not find him and tell him as much?

"Oh, right." Maeko said lamely, not wanting to speak on it too much. "He was helpful. I never got to thank you for your help, as well."

She tipped her head in a mixture of apology and thanks, to which Ushijima shook his head in polite refusal as if to say it was nothing.

"Actually, Tendou is the reason I stopped by. I was wondering if you've seen him?" Maeko asked, returning to Ushijima's original question.

Ushijima shook his head once more. "Tendou has an excused absence today. If you have important business with him, then I can text him for you." He patted the bag that he had slung over his shoulder, assumedly where he was keeping his cellphone.

Maeko aggressively shook her head, suddenly embarrassed. "N-no thank you, it can wait until tomorrow."

Truthfully, she would rather it _not_ wait, but the idea of having it communicated through a third, uninvolved party—and one like Ushijima with the expressiveness of a wall—sounded far less appealing. He would find a way to make her emotional, heartfelt confession of appreciation sound impersonal and aloof.

Maeko excused herself but, before she could even manage a step, Ushijima cleared his throat. "Wait a second."

Maeko turned back around to face him. "Yes?"

For a while, Ushijima said nothing.

He said nothing until Maeko began to feel _distinctly_ awkward.

Until he _did_ say something and, admittedly, Maeko felt no less awkward. "Does Ayume ever talk about me?"

Her lower jaw might as well have dislocated given the speed with which it dropped to the floor. She didn't know what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn't that.

Maeko searched her memories for a good moment, no matter how brief, but she was coming up short. Ayume scarcely mentioned Ushijima's name without insulting his robotism in the same sentence, but Maeko didn't have the heart to tell him that. "I'm sorry, but not really."

To her surprise (and relief), Ushijima didn't seem outwardly bothered by that information. He simply nodded his head in understanding and then went on with business as usual. "Okay. Thank you."

Without another word, Ushijima entered the gymnasium to prepare for practice. Maeko lingered in the doorway for a moment, watching him, wondering if he was more hurt by it than he was letting on.

\---

Maeko went straight to the arcade after school.

Tendou wasn't there, either, and she didn't know how many more times she could handle her heart sinking in one day.

She fiddled absentmindedly with her cellphone, wondering if she should've let Ushijima text him, after all.

That way, he'd at least know that she was thinking about him today—and worried about him.

With a sigh, she started a round of the spaceship game. It was the first game she played with him the night they lost track of time in here. She was no good at it, largely because she didn't entirely understand the rules or objective, but it made her think about him and, for a reason she didn't delve into too deeply, that was all she wanted to do.

She wasn't too sure what time she eventually went home. Suddenly, it was dark outside, and she couldn't get through a round of the spaceship game without yawning and then, in the same instant, getting hit by a meteorite—game over.

The high scores window popped up, and a familiar name caught her eye just as she was about to leave the chair. There was a handful of names she didn't recognize and then there, unsurprisingly at the top, was Tendou's.

Maeko's score was quite pathetic compared to his, but she still took a minute to type her name in and then add it to the list.

Remembering how Tendou had walked around the store and turned off the games and lights, Maeko opted to do the same. She didn't know which _guy_ Tendou knew that allowed him to play as long as he liked, but she figured he'd appreciate her help with saving power.

It took longer than anticipated, as she was unfamiliar with how to turn most of the games off and didn't know where the light switches were for the building, either, but she eventually managed to figure everything out, closing the door behind her.

Maeko stood in front of the door for a moment. There was a small, glass window on it through which she could see inside the building. It reminded her of the nurse's office after Tendou hit her in the head with a volleyball, then he breathed onto the glass to write a message.

That felt so long ago.

She felt a little silly and, perhaps, intrusive, writing secret messages on arcade windows that didn't belong to her in a quiet, dark alleyway. He'd probably never even think to check, but that made it all the more harmless.

_I hope you're okay._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this didn't feel like too much of a filler chapter. I just thought it was important to set the scene for the next chapter, and it also gives us a little insight into #UshiWithACrush oooooh.
> 
> I hope everybody has enjoyed the story so far! I love reading your comments soso much. <3 It's seriously like one of my favourite parts of the day imnotcryingyourecrying.


	14. PASSION IS CRASHING

At school on Tuesday morning, Maeko looked for Tendou _again_ except, this time, he was thankfully there, as easy to pick out of a crowd as always.

Relief, fast and overwhelming, flooded through her entire body at the mere sight of him. Maeko squinted at his side profile as she walked over to him, studying him, on the hunt for an outward sign of ailment or illness that could have been responsible for his absence but, as far as her eyes could tell, he looked like his ordinary _un_ ordinary self.

Maeko leaned slightly against the locker next to his, hidden from view by his opened locker door. She was in a good position to try to scare him. The thought even briefly crossed her mind.

However, just as she was on the verge of attempting it, one of her hands hovering over the material of his sweatshirt in preparation to grab on, Tendou _slammed_ his locker door shut and twirled around to face her.

Maeko's spirit might as well have exited her body, leaving behind someone breathless and pale-faced, more ghostly than human. She jumped and let out a small squeak, running into the locker behind her with a metallic, ringing _bang_ that reverberated down the length of the hallway, drawing several sets of curious eyes in her direction.

She turned her attention back to Tendou, glaring, trying not to think about all the eyes that were still fixated on her. "What was that for?"

"Being too focused on trying to scare someone actually makes you easier to scare." Tendou explained nonchalantly, waving one of his abnormally long pointer fingers through the air like an orchestra conductor. Maeko caught her eyes tracing the elegant patterns that his finger cut through the air as if momentarily hypnotized by it.

Maeko shook her head in disbelief. "How did you even know I was there?"

Tendou lifted two fingers to his eyeballs and then twisted his hand around to point them at Maeko next, switching back and forth a couple of times. "I know everything. Don't think too hard about your deep, dark secrets, or else I'll know those too."

That would have ordinarily creeped her out but, now, as she stood across from him, she returned his playful look tenfold, intrigued by his quirky statements and eager to puzzle out what unfathomable thing he'd say next. Tendou also looked like he might have caught onto that difference. His eyes widened, but only by a small fraction, as if it surprised him to look into a pair of eyes that didn't narrow in confusion or at a pair of eyebrows that didn't crinkle in unease.

Maeko's expression suddenly became serious. "Where were you yesterday?"

Tendou's smile faltered, but he was quick to recompose. "Why? Did you miss me?"

Maeko rolled her eyes, sincerely hoping that the blush she could feel burning beneath her cheeks hadn't risen up and tinted them a severe shade of red. "I'm not joking. Is everything okay?"

Tendou fiddled with the sleeve of his shirt, stepping away from his locker like he planned on cutting their conversation short and heading to class. "It's a beautiful, sunny Tuesday morning. Can't you hear the birds singing?"

There was a brief, awkward silence in which Tendou, with a hand to his ear, paused to listen for birds that never sang. Maeko's expression became increasingly quizzical in that lapse of silence as Tendou's wide-eyed grin faded away, realizing that no birds were coming to support him.

He cleared his throat, straightening his posture up again. "Well, there _were_ birds, my point being that there's nothing not to be okay with on a day like today."

Maeko didn't see the link between good weather and a good mood. That certainly wasn't always the case in her life, and she had a feeling that wasn't in his, either. That argument might have worked for other people, but Maeko saw right through it.

Right through it to the simple fact that he had purposefully evaded her question. She supposed that neither of them knew a lot about each other's personal lives, certainly not enough to warrant an open and honest answer in the middle of a busy hallway, but she really thought that he could count on her the same way she felt herself beginning to count on him.

"Maybe I'll see you after class?" Tendou said casually, taking a step down the hallway.

But then Maeko grabbed his arm, rooting him in place.

She felt the muscles in his arm stiffen. When he turned his head to the side to look at her again, she could see it plainly on his face that he was taken aback.

Not once had Maeko initiated physical contact or, until today, even started a simple conversation. It was really killing two birds with one stone. It might have looked quite normal, even irrelevant, from a bystander's perspective on their exchange, but both of them knew how much her touch was changing their dynamic.

"I—" Maeko jostled her brain for the words with an incredibly grave, focused expression.

Tendou stayed quiet, patient. He usually would have said something silly that made them laugh and eased the tension, but his gaping, unblinking stare was a telltale sign to Maeko that he was a lot more shaken by this turn of events than he appeared to be. Perhaps he didn't feel capable of speaking in that moment.

Maeko took a deep breath. This time, when her eyes found Tendou's, they were almost confident. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out her cellphone, shoving it into Tendou's hand. "I want your phone number."

Tendou's fingers didn't immediately curl around the cellphone she planted in the palm of his hand. That gaping, unblinking stare of his was beginning to redden the whites of his eyes.

The silence was unbearable, but Maeko tried her best to stand there, while returning his stare, without turning tail in embarrassment.

It was like Tendou just woke up. He was eerily still for one second, and the next he was suddenly jostled into motion, fumbling with the keys of Maeko's cellphone to type in his contact information.

Maeko held out her hand for Tendou's cellphone and spoke with the last bit of courage that she had at her disposal. "I will give you my phone number, as well."

 _Oh my god,_ she mentally scolded herself, _I sound like Ushijima. Could that have been any more robotic?_

Tendou's head bobbed up and down like a seagull, wordlessly rummaging for his cellphone and then handing it to Maeko. After she finished typing in her contact information, they swapped cell phones one last time. There was something akin to _fondness_ in Tendou's eyes as he quickly read the name and number on his screen before shoving it back into his pocket.

Maeko had no clue what to say next. She was quite literally saved by the bell.

Tendou laid a hand on Maeko's shoulder, playfully jostling her back and forth. "I'll see you after class." And then he was gone, taking long strides down the hallway to catch up with Semi and Ushijima who were already a ways ahead.

She was glad he dropped the _maybe._

Only then, after he was gone, did Maeko release a deep, shuddering breath, collapsing against the locker behind her. She had to head to class, too, but her legs felt wobbly. Her heart was beating so fast that she thought she might pass out if she tried to support her own weight.

But she was smiling despite all of that.

Maeko wondered, perhaps _hoped,_ that Tendou was, too, as he ran to catch up with his friends.


	15. WORRIED 'BOUT THOSE COMMENTS

Maeko's first class of the day was just as uncomfortable as it had been yesterday with Ayume beside her projecting a tremendous aura. Ayume was actually paying attention to the teacher this time, but her expression was so severe, so _unimpressed,_ that Maeko thought a vein might pop out of her forehead any second.

It all happened so fast.

Maeko rushed to gather her things as soon as the bell rang, but she didn't even manage to push her seat all the way back before Ayume was there, in front of her desk, using her body to block Maeko's escape route. There might as well have been angry storm clouds hanging over top of Ayume's head given the looks that their classmates shot in their direction as they filed out of the classroom. They looked alarmed and, perhaps, concerned for Maeko's safety—rightfully so.

The teacher cleared his throat. It was a quiet request for Maeko and Ayume to leave with the other students so he could prepare for his next class.

Ayume sharply spun around to face their teacher. "I'm going to need to borrow your classroom."

The teacher slid his frames down the length of his nose, squinting. "Excuse me, Ayume?"

"I wouldn't ask if it wasn't urgent." Ayume explained, gesturing to the door as politely as she could. "You can have it back in a couple minutes."

The teacher looked torn between amusement and annoyance. He, too, gestured to the door. "Students don't get to dismiss teachers. It's the other way around."

Ayume had a retort on the tip of her tongue but, before she could say another word, Maeko latched onto her arm and then frantically steered her out of the classroom, dipping her head in apology to their teacher as they passed by. Maeko tried to locate a quiet spot for her and Ayume to talk, but she hardly made it a few steps out of the classroom before Ayume wrestled out of her grip, defiant.

"Oh, I'm sorry, was I embarrassing you? Well that's _too bad,_ Maeko. That's what happens when you ignore me for a few days."

Maeko sighed. She knew that Ayume's mood was going to get worse and worse the longer she put this off but, for some reason, she chose to put it off anyways. Ayume could be stubborn, to say the absolute least, and it usually led to Maeko being the one to apologize even if she had a good reason to be upset.

"I shouldn't have ignored you." Maeko said in way of a peace offering. "I've just been nervous about this conversation. I didn't know what to say."

Ayume's eyes softened, but only a little. Even if she couldn't relate to Maeko's shyness or insecurities, she _did_ try to understand them.

Which Maeko knew. Perhaps it was manipulative of her, but it felt like the best route to take to quell some of the anger that Ayume had been building up.

"That's not how we work." Ayume shook her head. She looked disappointed that she had to explain this. "We can talk about anything. I've always been here for you."

Ayume took a deep breath before continuing. "I wanted to apologize for the party. I didn't know my friends were going to invite _their_ friends, too, or else I would've given you a heads up. I know that wasn't your element."

Maeko smiled. She appreciated the apology, but she knew that, on some level, Ayume didn't mean it because, at the end of the day, it was _her_ element and it was _her_ party. Truthfully, Maeko wasn't even that upset about it anymore which was probably why the apology felt good enough. There was something else that she had been subconsciously avoiding like her life depended on it.

It was something that her smile, symbolizing acceptance, symbolizing a return to the normalcy of their friendship, invited Ayume to ask.

Ayume folded her arms across her chest. There was a look of condemnation written plainly on her face. "I thought I saw you leave with Tendou that night." She didn't phrase it like a question even though it _was_ one. Ayume carefully, expertly, kept the accusation out of her tone.

Instinct kicked in. Maeko, wanting to protect herself, chose evasion and avoidance. "There was a lot of people at your party. You probably mistook me for someone else."

Ayume quirked an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

Maeko nodded her head. She knew that, if she spoke on the matter more than that, then she likely wouldn't be able to commit to the lie.

Ayume took a threatening step closer. "That's strange. I could've sworn I saw you at Tendou's locker this morning, too." She inclined her head, smug, knowing she had Maeko cornered. "It looked like you were exchanging phone numbers."

Maeko's lips formed a tight line. It was almost embarrassing how quickly she caved under the pressure. _"Fine!_ You might have saw me leaving your party with him."

"Might have?"

"You might have saw me exchanging phone numbers with him, too."

_"Might have?"_

Maeko rolled her eyes. "What do you want me to say?"

"I'm just surprised." Ayume said, stepping back and giving Maeko some of her personal space back now that she was satisfied with the information she got. "I thought I warned you to stay away from him? He gives me a weird vibe, and I'm not the only one. The entire girls' team agrees."

Maeko grasped at the first straw she could think of, desperate to defend him. "He hangs out with his teammates all the time. He can't be _that_ weird."

Ayume shook her head vehemently. "Coach Washijo is _very_ strict about his definition of a good volleyball player, and Tendou just so happened to meet his criteria to be on the team. The others had no choice but to get used to him."

Ayume's suspicion grew tenfold with every second. "You don't usually ignore my advice like this. Why are you defending him? Tell me what I'm not seeing here and I'll back off."

Maeko immediately opened her mouth to speak, to _defend_ him, to make Ayume see him the way she saw him, but nobody was more surprised than Maeko when no words came out. She realized, then, how utterly incapable she was of expressing the feeling he gave her. It was there, on the tip of her tongue, but Ayume's eyes, so sharp, so dominating, so _certain_ that they were right to belittle him, left Maeko feeling speechless.

Ayume was Maeko's best friend. She wanted what was best for Maeko and, ever since they were little, she had been better at seeing what the best things were. Maeko had always been content following in Ayume's shadow. She let Ayume play leader because she was good at it. She kept Maeko safe from all the mean comments and the abuse, providing shelter at school and in her own home when Maeko's parents became too much to handle. Maeko came to rely on her so heavily, so completely, that she struggled to voice aloud any opinion, any _thing,_ that clashed with Ayume's.

It was out of fear of losing Ayume, of giving her a reason, any reason at all, to decide that she'd been wrong to protect Maeko from those elementary school bullies so many years ago, and then to stop offering that protection because of it.

Apparently, Maeko's internal struggle had been going on a little longer than she thought. Ayume, sensing her unease, broke the silence again, gently resting one of her hands on Maeko's shoulder to bring her back to attention.

"Listen." Ayume said. Her voice sounded calm and relaxing. It eased the tension in Maeko's body, making her shoulders slump forward and, suddenly, she was enraptured, prepared to listen to anything. 

"If Tendou has been helping you, or something, in ways that I haven't been, then I'll stop trying to interfere, but _trust me."_

The emphasis was strong and purposeful. Maeko froze beneath the weight of her stare, the feeling of her hand on Maeko's shoulder suddenly tightening its grip. Such was the power, the significance, of the trust they had been building and fostering ever since the fateful day they met, the day Ayume offered the same hand to pick, to _encourage,_ Maeko up and off the ground.

"Tendou is the type of person who will attract the attention that you have been trying so hard to avoid for your entire life."

That sentence had claws, and they sunk in deep.

Maeko was reminded of the most recent case of that this morning when she had been planning on scaring Tendou only for him to turn the tables, causing her to accidentally run into a locker and attract several sets of eyes due to the loud noise it created. At the time, she really didn't mind having all of those eyes on her, but thinking about it now, without the safety or reassurance of his presence to endure it with her, made her feel distinctly uncomfortable about it.

He was a little _loud,_ and people tended to stare a little longer than necessary whenever they passed him in the hallway. But Tendou didn't mind it or, at least, he was immune to it by now, and that quality was infectious, spreading to Maeko and making her feel immune, too.

It was borrowed confidence.

She didn't yet possess it when she stood on her own.

"He might not care about the attention he gets, but I know you care about it. I don't want to see you getting yourself into a situation that you'll regret later."

"I think I've heard enough." Maeko said shortly, feeling breathless even though she barely spoke.

Ayume looked like she had more to say on the matter but, seeing Maeko's grim expression, she dropped the subject, assuming Maeko understood the point she was making. "I'm just looking out for you like I always do. I hope you know that."

Maeko nodded. It was solemn, half-hearted, but a nod nonetheless—a confirmation. "I do."

And she _did_ know it. Ayume's words might have not been what Maeko wanted, or even needed, but Ayume always tried to look out for her and consider what was in her best interest based on what she knew to be true about Maeko. Ayume had always been right up until now. It was difficult for Maeko to ignore her influence, her authority, no matter how strongly her heart begged her to.

Ayume, whether it was intentional or not, had planted a seed of doubt in Maeko's mind, and Maeko's opinion on that seed had little effect on how fast it was going to grow.

Maeko was desperate to steer their conversation in a different direction. She forced a smile, standing on her tiptoes to whisper a secret into Ayume's ear. "I had an interesting conversation with Ushijima a few days ago. Care to hear about it?"

\---

That night, Maeko tossed and turned in bed, unable to fall asleep.

Just as she reached over to grab her cellphone off her bedside table to check the time, which was 11PM, it vibrated with a new text message.

_TENDOU, sent to MAEKO at 11:00PM_   
_U up? ;)_

Maeko's heart skipped a beat. Her fingers hovered over the keys, but she didn't answer.

_TENDOU, sent to MAEKO at 11:02PM_   
_That was absolutely a joke... I'd be interested in revising my question to politely ask if you're still awake._

Her fingers stayed there, hovering.

With a sigh, Maeko returned her phone to her bedside table, face down.

She didn't _want_ to ignore him, but Ayume had frightened her. If Ayume was right, and she wouldn't be able to handle all the extra attention that came with having such an eccentric friend, then she would just end up hurting Tendou more if she prolonged their friendship only to ditch him later on when her anxiety became too much.

It was better this way.

Her phone vibrated again but, this time, when Maeko reached over for her cellphone, it was just to to turn on _do no disturb._


	16. COME BE LONELY WITH ME

Two weeks had come and gone.

Each day had somehow dragged on more slowly than the one before it, but Maeko knew why.

She had been avoiding Tendou like her life depended on it. He texted her for a couple of days, but the replies got slower and, eventually, more spread out until they just stopped coming altogether. He stopped trying to catch her outside her classroom, too, and then he stopped trying to catch her eye in the hallway. He just _stopped._ It was like they, whatever they even were, had never even happened.

Maeko was glad, at least, for Ayume, who was somehow at her side even more than usual. She was a happy distraction that, for the most part, kept Maeko's mind occupied and busy, but it couldn't be helped in the moments Maeko wound up alone.

She missed him.

But it was also her own fault, and her own choice, so she knew she had no right.

It was going to be better this way for both of them. Ayume said as much, and Maeko, believing it, reminded herself of it daily.

Maeko laid in bed that night, struggling to fall asleep. It was happening more and more often recently. She decided to take a shower in the hopes that some warm water would clear her head.

By the time she got out and returned to her bedroom, an hour had somehow passed. Time felt so finicky and unpredictable lately. She couldn't tell if it was going too fast or too slow. Maybe she was just checking the clock less.

Her cellphone started to buzz, but she was in the middle of pulling a shirt over her head and didn't have time to answer it before it went to voicemail.

Afterwards, she leaned over her bedside table and turned on the screen.

It was like all the moisture had been sucked out of the room. Her eyes and throat felt dry. She could hardly blink, hardly breathe, wondering why on earth after two weeks, out of the blue, she suddenly had several missed calls from _him_.

She checked the time stamps, her fingers shaking in panic. He called in intervals of no more than ten minutes for the last hour just as she left to take her shower. The timing was _cruel._

The last two weeks were forgotten, discarded. There was nothing but ice-cold fear as she opened their text chat—empty, deleted—and then started to type.

_MAEKO, sent to TENDOU at 10:23PM_   
_I'm so sorry. I was in the shower. Are you okay?_

He replied within seconds, but it still felt like an eternity to her.

_TENDOU, sent to MAEKO at 10:23PM_   
_Can you meet me at the amusement park?_

Maeko's stomach turned. Something felt terribly _wrong._

_MAEKO, sent to TENDOU at 10:24PM_   
_I'm on my way._

\---

Maeko's nerves were at an all time high as she snuck down the stairs and then out the front door, shutting it behind her as gently as possible in fear of waking her parents. She knew that there was nothing to be afraid of in that regard. Her parents never checked on her in the middle of the night because, if she didn't have plans with Ayume, then she never left her room after dinner. Maeko had their unconditional trust or, perhaps, she reminded herself with a disappointed sigh, their disinterest.

The only thing she had to be afraid of right now was Tendou.

Not afraid _of_ him, but _for_ him.

Hundreds of worst-case scenarios had played in the back of her head by the time she got to the amusement park from her house. Each was worse, more gruesome, than the one before it.

Maeko tried to remind herself that it wasn't feasible for her to reach this place any faster than she did, within the hour; but each second she spent seated on that bus, rotating between looking out the window or texting Tendou to remind him, reassure him, that she was coming as quickly as she could, felt like a second wasted in idleness when he, for all she knew, could've been in serious trouble.

He stopped replying to her texts halfway through the bus ride, too, which certainly didn't help to ease her mind.

When she finally stepped off that ridiculously _slow_ bus, she took off down the street as fast as her feet could carry her. She was completely out of breath by the time she passed beneath the familiar P-L-A-Y-L-A-N-D sign. The red ink it was written in made her feel uneasy the first time she saw it, when Tendou brought her here for what, now, she thought might've been the best night of her life.

It was cruel, really, how the mind latched onto fond memories of a person when it felt like they were slipping away. That feeling, as Maeko blindly ran through the park, turning her head every which way in the hopes she'd see him sitting somewhere, waiting for her, lifting a hand to wave, or smiling, was inexplainable when, at every turn, he wasn't there to do any of those things.

In the back of her head, as she raced past the Ferris wheel and the merry-go-round, she could see him sitting there so clearly, beside her, the way his nose always scrunched up a little when he laughed, and his thin eyebrows always furrowed, as if deep in thought, every time he stole a glance at her when he thought she wasn't looking.

So why wasn't he sitting there right now?

Her search became more frantic, crazed. Her heart was _banging_ in her chest at a speed that made her feel light-headed, but she refused to stand still. There was no time for that. She cupped her hands around her mouth, on the verge of screaming his name at the top of her lungs.

That was the precise moment she caught a glimpse of something bright red as she spun a full circle, scanning in every direction.

He was in a spot that, only after seeing him, struck her as _obvious._

He was sitting on a park bench with his back turned to her, nice and close to a small building with a sign hanging crookedly over the customer service window that read: _lost and found._

Under any other circumstances, his choice would've pulled at the corner of her lip, amused, and she would've laughed in a way that reverberated through every inch of her body, making her feel full and happy, as she approached from behind him.

All she could manage in that moment, however, was a relieved sigh, but _this_ relief wasn't the kind that gave her peace of mind.

"Tendou?" She called to him quietly.

Her heart sank when he didn't turn around. If her _panic_ and _concern_ had hands of their own, then they undoubtedly stretched from her to him, wrapping around his neck, holding him, letting him know he didn't have to feel anything _bad_ or _hard_ all alone.

Maeko simply slid onto the bench beside him, hugging him, instead, with eyes that hungrily searched every inch of his body for a physical sign of what was wrong, of what he had called her for.

He looked the same, she thought, which scared her more than it would've if she saw a bruise on his arm or a trail of blood dribbling out of his mouth.

Not knowing what else to do, Maeko tentatively reached over and wrapped her fingers around his wrist, squeezing through the fabric until she felt skin; her pinky finger stretched out, almost to his knuckles, rubbing back and forth in a way she hoped was soothing.

Something shifted in his eyes when she touched him. He glanced down first, at the spot where her pinky finger was brushing his skin, and then to the side where she sat. It was like he didn't realize she was here until now. Had it gone completely over his head when she called his name? What weighed so heavily on his mind that he couldn't hear her?

Her heart ached at the sight of the expression on his face. There was nothing to gather from it, really, but that was the _problem._

It lacked expression. His beady, deep red eyes were usually thick with _something,_ like amusement for a joke only he could understand, but they were blank, empty.

Maeko's head shook slowly, unbidden, in a silent plea for the looks he'd give her from the end of the hallway, or the end of the street, from his seat in front of the spaceship game, from Ayume's bedroom door—anything but _this._

"What's wrong?" Maeko asked, her voice quivering and thick with emotion. "Talk to me."

But he didn't talk to her.

Instead, he scooted to the edge of the bench, far enough away from her that her fingers had to release their grip on his wrist. If his movements were harsh, abrupt, or angry, she might've resisted and tried to hold him in place until he talked to her, but it was incredibly deliberate. Her fingers uncoiled because his body language somehow wordlessly pleaded for it.

Maeko never experienced heart break.

She never got close enough to another person for it to be possible.

She thought she'd have to know them for months, or even years, before she could be explicitly and intimately bonded enough for them to break her heart.

Boy, was she wrong.

It didn't take months or years. It probably wouldn't have even taken days for Tendou Satori to break her heart.

All it took was him lying down and resting his head on her lap, not saying a word. That _monster_ everybody was so quick to judge had never looked so small.

Her hand hovered helplessly over top of his head. She wanted to help him, to say something, but he already made it painfully clear that he didn't need to hear her voice.

All he needed was her presence. Someone to sit there and hold him.

Fast and violent were Maeko's tears, for she felt like the only monster here for not being there for him, not being _closer_ so she could've, perhaps, stopped this, whatever it was, before it happened.

All she could do now was force them to fall quietly for his benefit, to not disturb him or allow her guilt to make this about herself.

She was here now.

It wasn't enough.

But she was here, and she would _not_ leave him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a forewarning that the next 2 chapters will be heavy reads!


	17. FLASHBACK*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW REMINDER: Contains themes of bullying, verbal abuse, and physical abuse. This is going to be a pretty heavy read. Please skip if you'd prefer to avoid this type of content, thanks! This is going to be the only chapter written in Tendou's POV.

Tendou sat cross-legged on the living room floor, watching his favourite cartoon. It would have been far more comfortable to sit on the couch just behind him, but he was holding a chocolate chip cookie in his hands, and his mother always got upset if she found crumbs on the cushions. It was a lesson that Tendou only needed to learn once.

Normally, Tendou ate at the kitchen table, but he could hear his mother and father fighting about something, probably bills, or who would pick him up from school later, and he was reluctant to put himself in the middle of it. It was either he risked getting cookie crumbs on the floor—which was only marginally better than the cushions because, at least, he could try to pick them all up or brush them underneath the couch to buy time—or he risked getting pulled into their argument if he sat at the kitchen table. He hardly had to think about which one he preferred. His parents always found a way to blame their problems on him. Life wasn't challenging, or expensive, or _difficult,_ until there was the burden of a child.

Every once in a while, Tendou wondered if other children had to pay as much careful attention as he did to where and how they ate their snacks, but then he would brush it off and return to business as usual, trying to enjoy his cartoons over the sound of his parents' yelling at each other in the other room.

He continued eating. He even spared a smile for his favourite cartoon character on the screen. His parents had gotten so loud that he could no longer hear the dialogue, but that was no problem. He would just have to make up his own dialogue again. He had become rather fond of doing it.

"Time for school." His mother said, harsh and to the point. She poked her head into the living room but, upon seeing the half-eaten cookie in her son's hands, she was paying more attention to the floor than to his face.

Tendou scurried to his feet, turning off the television and then hoisting his backpack on. He followed his mother to the car with a skip in his step. He was thrilled that she would be the one driving him to school today. She was frightening when she got upset but, at least, she very rarely laid a hand on him. He couldn't even remember the last time it happened.

Which he couldn't say about his father.

\---

His mother could be cruel in her own way, but he had to thank her, really, for giving him the gift of perception, of looking too closely at every little detail, picking and prying it apart to ensure it would never come back and bite him.

The volleyball ricocheted of the tips of Tendou's fingers, _slamming_ down into the spiker's court. He smiled through the net, eyes shining, mouth held agape in awe, as the receiver who dove to retrieve it glared up at him from where they had fallen. There was something about that expression, that look of anger, of a sore loser who couldn't accept defeat, that Tendou loved.

Even if that love made him hated.

"Don't worry," the spiker said, helping the receiver, who was still glaring at Tendou, back onto his feet. "We'll play again after school without him."

"Why can't I come?" Tendou asked innocently. It was difficult to keep the desperation to understand, or the deep-seeded desire to be accepted and included, from showing on his youthful face.

He wouldn't hone that skill until much later in life.

Now there were two boys glaring at him.

"Because you're too weird." One of them said.

"It's no fun playing with you." The other chimed in. "We only do it during gym class because the teacher makes us."

"You look like a monster!"

"Normal kids don't play with monsters!"

They turned their backs on Tendou and ran away before he could respond, not seeing how their insults made his lower lip wobble—not caring enough to see it.

The word _monster_ made him think about frightening, make-believe things that hid under kids' beds, and then about real, living things that shouted in the kitchen and lashed out at anybody standing too close.

He wasn't like that!

He wasn't capable of that!

Was that really what people saw when they looked at him?

No wonder they ran.

He tried to run from monsters, too, but they always caught up.

\---

School ended exactly one hour ago. Parents filed in and out with their kids in hand. The last car in the parking lot left over thirty minutes ago.

But Tendou was still there. Sometimes he forgot that he was a kid, too, after enduring his classmates' taunts all day.

He sat on the sidewalk, fiddling with the straps of his backpack. His mother explained that his father was going to pick him up after school, but he must have forgotten. That was fine. Tendou would rather sit here, by himself, than alone in a car with his father. He could sleep on the sidewalk, using his backpack as a pillow, and be the first one at school in the morning. His homeroom teacher gave stickers out, reserving gold stars for the organized early birds who were first to arrive before the bell. Tendou never got one of those stickers, but this could be his chance to.

"Tendou, is that you?"

A wide, red-eyed stare lifted to see none other than the teacher in question. She knelt to eye-level with Tendou, resting a hand on his shoulder comfortingly. "Are your parents running late? Should I give them a call?"

Fear, as cold as ice, crept up Tendou's spine, but how was a child supposed to put into words why they would rather wait all night than give their parents a simple, friendly call?

"Come on, we'll wait inside. It's getting a little chilly out here." Tendou was prompted onto his feet and then shepherded back into the school.

He was seated in a chair across from his teacher's desk as she gave his father a call, still fiddling with the straps of his backpack although, this time, at an anxious speed, catching and pulling at the fabric slightly with his unkept fingernails.

His teacher put the phone down with a sigh. "No answer. Do your parents usually work late?"

Tendou shrugged, unsure how to answer.

"Well, it's no use waiting around for them to call back." His teacher stood and offered a small smile. "I'll drive you home. Let's go."

The car ride was quiet and uneventful. There was soft, slow music playing in the background which his teacher hummed along to. Her vehicle was spacious and clean. She had a picture of her family, all smiling, sticking out of the glovebox. Tendou wondered if this was how he was supposed to feel while he was in a vehicle with his parents. Safe. Comfortable. Unafraid. Was _this_ what a mother looked like?

They pulled up outside of Tendou's house. His teacher turned off the vehicle and then walked around to Tendou's side, opening the door for him and then helping him out. She walked to the door with him, holding his backpack in one hand and then his hand in the other. She knocked on the door. There was an unbearably long silence as the voices on the other side quieted and composed, taking their sweet time undoing the locks.

His father looked different. Perhaps it was because he was smiling. "Hi there, how can I help—oh, Tendou, there you are!"

His teacher offered a small, thin smile. "He was still at school while I was on my way out. He was waiting there for quite some time to be picked up. I tried to call your household, but there was no answer."

She leaned forward ever so slightly to sneak a peak inside of the house, but there was nothing to see. A look into their pristine house was no indication of what lurked underneath. His cleanly mother could scrub stains, dirt, and blood away, but not his memories of them.

His father, cellphone in hand, waved it through the air for the teacher to see. "I was just on the phone with his usual babysitter. We planned for her to pick him up today, but there was a car accident while she was on the way. I must have been on the phone with her when you called."

All of it was a lie. Tendou didn't have a babysitter. He stayed home alone if his parents had to go out for a while. But he didn't speak up to deny it.

His teacher gasped in shock. "Oh, goodness. Is she okay?"

His father anxiously ran his fingers through his hair. "I think so. She seemed well enough from what I could hear on the phone. Anyways, I'm sorry for the trouble. We were nearly about to give the school a call about Tendou."

She shook her head. "No, no trouble at all. Tendou is a great kid." She ruffled his red bowl cut. "I'll be on my way then."

Tendou and his father stood in the doorway until his teacher was back inside of her car.

"Wave.' His father said thinly through his forced smile.

Tendou waved.

His teacher waved back, smiling through the window, before starting her vehicle and driving off. As soon as she was out of sight, his father stepped back into the house. Tendou, holding his shoulders taut, felt his eyes begin to water as he tentatively followed. The door closed behind him. There was a moment of tense silence before a loud, resounding—

— _smack._


	18. EVERYTHING'S FINE, I AM FINE*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: There are some mentions of physical abuse in this chapter. Please read carefully if you are sensitive to this type of material!

Maeko couldn't tell how long she sat there, with Tendou lying in her lap, and her fingers gently pulling through the knots in his messy red hair. She finally stopped crying or, at least, letting the tears stream freely down her cheeks. Her eyes were still wet and red-rimmed. She couldn't think about any of it, _him,_ the way he looked so utterly defeated, quiet and gloomy, without bursting into tears all over again, but it wasn't like she could help looking.

Tendou suddenly squirmed, rolling onto his back so he was now looking up at her from where he laid in her lap. It looked like he had been crying, too, but too softly for Maeko to hear it. He was biting on his lower lip while he got comfortable as if trying to hold back a wince. His long lashes left small, wet imprints on the tops of his cheekbones every time he blinked.

He released a long, shuddering breath. Maeko almost didn't recognize his voice when he spoke. It was deep and raspy like the croak of a toad, but it was still _him,_ unmistakably. Nobody else looked at her like that, so endearingly. "Do you ever feel unhappy?"

Maeko was hit with déjà vu. It reminded her of the night they spent together in the arcade when he asked a question similar to this one, but _unhappy_ felt like an intense drop from _tired._

She was slow to answer, but mostly because she was unsure _how_ to answer, just like she had been on the aforementioned night, too. It felt like there was a wrong thing to say. "I used to be unhappy when I was younger. I didn't have friends and my classmates picked on me a lot, but then I met Ayume and things started to get better."

Maeko firmly believed that Ayume was the answer or, at least, _her_ answer. It was silly to think that one person could be responsible for providing happiness like that, but feeling safe at school was a gigantic step in that direction for Maeko. She didn't know what she'd do, or where she'd be, if she hadn't met Ayume.

Tendou didn't look displeased with that answer, per say, as much as he looked unconvinced or, perhaps, doubtful.

"Even then?" Tendou pressed. "Even when you have someone that you really care about or think that you could love—" his dark eyes fixated on hers, "—is there not sometimes still this _feeling_ in the back of your head that you can't shake, no matter how much you try, or want to, that you're unhappy?"

Tendou broke into a coughing fit and, immediately, his hands tightened around his stomach.

Seeing him like that, obviously in pain, distracted Maeko from their conversation. Her hand hovered over top of his, where it clutched his stomach, but she didn't dare touch him there. Instead, she simply looked at him, pleading. "What happened to you?" It was the third time she asked him that. She hoped it wouldn't be the third time he shut her out.

He looked reluctant to answer but, eventually, with a sigh that appeared to take some effort, he relented. He already reached out to Maeko and asked her to meet him here. It was clear that she wasn't going to leave him alone without understanding what was going on.

Rather than explain it in words, Tendou's fingers curled around the bottommost fabric of his shirt, pulling it up to expose the skin underneath.

Maeko couldn't help but gasp. It was either that or cry again which she _really_ didn't think he needed right now.

Bruises, a menacing shade of bluish-black, across and up his stomach, and he was only exposing a very small fraction of his skin. Maeko thought he might've been trying to make it seem less bad than it was by doing that. It was no wonder that he had been awkwardly squirming so much, or biting on his lip to keep from making sounds, whenever he moved. He was in pain. She wished there was something she could do to take it away; but even if she couldn't change the past, there had to be _something,_ at least, that she could do for him now, moving forward.

"You can't go home." Maeko said with unnatural firmness. "I won't let you go back there."

Tendou, in spite of the overwhelming seriousness of the situation, tried to laugh, to make light of something so incredibly dark, but he couldn't laugh without it turning into a wheeze, or a sputter for air, as he clutched at his stomach.

"I wasn't planning on it. Not tonight, anyways." He softly patted the bench. It was cold and slightly damp against Maeko's fingertips. "I can make this work."

Maeko didn't know which was sadder: The idea of sleeping on a cold, damp bench, or the look on Tendou's face while he _said_ that he'd sleep on a cold, damp bench.

There was no self-pity or discontent expressed over his circumstances. It didn't look like he saw it as something sad or pathetic that he needed to be embarrassed or upset about. It was more like a fact of the matter, an expectation, something he couldn't change about his life and didn't dwell on any longer than necessary. Maeko got the impression that he lived every day believing it could be worse than it was. As long as he could still convince himself of that, as long as he could still picture himself smiling the next day at school like everything was fine, then he _was_ convinced and he _was_ fine.

"No." Maeko said. She said it without even having a plan to back it up.

"No?" Tendou mimicked, an eyebrow raised.

 _"No."_ Maeko, as gently as possible, put her hands beneath Tendou's head for support while she slid out from underneath it. She stood up, offering both hands to help him do the same.

At first, Tendou merely stared at her offered hands or, rather, he _gaped_ at them, unable to fathom what she meant by them. "What are you doing?"

Sensing his hesitancy, Maeko took the initiative. She grabbed a hold of his hands and guided him into a sit, and then, from there, she helped him onto his feet, trying her best to shoulder his height and weight.

Her reply was adamant, albeit a little breathless. "I'm taking you to my house. You can stay in the spare bedroom tonight."

"But your parents—"

"They won't find out." Maeko snuffed him out like a candle, and she would proceed to do that with every other argument he tried to give her.

She paused, and her head whipped to the side to look at him. What she saw there was wide eyes and parted lips, almost like a puppy in a box on the side of the road might've looked at the first person who pulled over to pick it up, offering shelter from a cold night alone.

"I'm not letting you sleep outside. There's nothing you can say or do to change my mind. You're _injured_ so don't think you can outrun or resist me. If you try to make an excuse that you can't walk that far then I'll, I don't know, I-I'll _carry_ you if I have to. You're staying at my house and that's that." With an indignant _hmph,_ Maeko refocused on the task at hand, an arm linked with Tendou's to help him walk.

He smiled at her side profile, grateful. She didn't realize how much he needed to hear something like that.

\---

Getting back to her house was no easy task. The buses stopped running after a certain hour so Maeko opted to call a cab, but she didn't have any money on her, so the cab driver had to wait outside, growing impatient, while she rummaged through drawers in the kitchen for some of her parent's spare cash. Normally, Maeko would've _never_ been able to imagine herself taking money from her parents without asking. She didn't know how she would explain this to them when it inevitably came up but, surprisingly, she didn't care about it, either. The only thing on her mind was staying true to her word and making sure Tendou didn't end up on a bench tonight.

When the cab driver pulled away, Maeko re-linked arms with Tendou and walked with him through the front door. They quietly pulled their shoes off but, at the last second, Maeko reached down for Tendou's to take them to the spare bedroom so her parents wouldn't see them in the morning.

The stairs might've been their biggest obstacle that night.

It worked all the wrong muscles in Tendou's body, but he didn't make a sound. Maeko could tell from the severe way his eyebrows were knitted together that he was concentrated on being quiet.

When they reached the bedroom at long last, quietly shutting the door behind them, they both collapsed onto the bed unbidden. Both of them, for their own reasons, needed a second to catch their breath and calm their mind—but a calm mind led to the unavoidable realization that they were suddenly alone, in a dark bedroom, on a bed, at a late hour in the middle of the night, lying next to each other.

Maeko slowly turned her head to the side until her cheek rested against the bedsheet. She planned on stealing a quiet glance at Tendou's face but, to her surprise, he was already looking straight at her.

She was on the verge of averting her eyes out of pure shyness, but Tendou froze her in place with two words. "Thank you."

It wasn't like Maeko had never heard those words before, but they sounded genuinely and wholesomely sincere.

"I-It's nothing." She stuttered, trying to shrug her shoulders.

Tendou turned his head so he was looking up at the ceiling, letting out a long sigh that ended in a quiet grunt of pain due to his stomach but, despite that, he was still smiling. "I don't know what it is, but it's a lot more than nothing."

Maeko didn't know what to make of that. What, exactly, was he talking about?

Surely it was just her actions, but she couldn't help wondering if he also meant _her,_ in general, or _them._

Maeko awkwardly cleared her throat before climbing out of bed. She fiddled with her hands in awkwardness. "Can I, uh, get you anything before bed? A glass of water?"

His eyes fixated on her at these words, knowing it was a declaration that she was on the verge of leaving for the night. "No, a bed is plenty."

"Okay then, well..." Maeko's hand closed around the doorknob. "Goodnight. I'll come and get you as soon as my parents leave for work."

She hardly twisted it at all before Tendou froze her in place yet again. "Maeko?"

Her shoulders stiffened. She turned her head to the side, but not enough to look at him.

There was a long lapse of silence, as if he was carefully thinking over his words, until...

"Do you think you could stay in here tonight?"


	19. SANCTUARY

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Joji - Sanctuary was inspiration for the first half of this chapter! Feel free to listen to it while reading if you want to and don't find lyrics/music in the background distracting ^-^

She hardly moved, hardly breathed. She was hiding a boy in her spare bedroom and, now, he was asking her to spend the night with him in the same bed. Deep down, Maeko knew she was overthinking it, getting embarrassed and flustered for nothing. He didn't mean anything by it. He had a difficult night, so it was only natural that he didn't want to spend the rest of it alone.

Maeko cautiously turned around to look at him and, just as she thought, there was nothing in his expression to be cause for fear or discomfort. She was looking into the eyes of a friend, and a damned good one. He just needed a good friend right now, too.

The walk from the door to the side of the bed felt like an endless expanse of space with his eyes fixated on her like that. There was something so intimate about him lying down and staring up at her like that, expecting her. When he gently grasped the bedsheet in one of his hands and pulled it back for her, patting the space right next to him, she could feel her heart spasming deep in her chest.

She climbed in or, more accurately, collapsed in, hyperaware of how her body fit next to his and how her head rested on the pillow. She couldn't decide if she should face him, lie on her back and pretend there was something fascinating about the ceiling, or face the door so her cheeks could burn a deep shade of red without him knowing it.

"Why don't you call me Satori?"

Maeko jerked her head in his direction, eyes widened in surprise. For some reason, she didn't expect to have a conversation with him. Bed meant sleep. That was the extent of how complex her thoughts could be at that moment.

"I don't know." She replied uselessly.

Tendou had been calling her by her first name for as long as she knew him, ever since he crowded her and Ayume with a few of his friends to see the aftereffects of the volleyball he spiked into her forehead. At first, it made her uncomfortable, but _everything_ made her uncomfortable, so she didn't think about it in excruciating detail beyond that. At some point along the way it had become normal, _sounded_ normal, because he struck her as the type of person who was very casual and at ease in social situations. She never thought to use his first name. How long had he been wanting her to?

Tendou made a rumbling _hmm_ noise under his breath, but he didn't say anything else. He just continued to stare at her, eyes soft and considerate.

It made her realize that her reply probably sounded defensive or like a subject she had no interest in breaching with him, so she desperately tried to recover from it. "I-I guess I just never thought about it, but it's not like I don't want to call you by your first name. I-If you'd prefer it, then I can probably start to..."

He was smiling. God, _why_ was he smiling like that?

"What is it?" Maeko breathed, almost silent.

"Come here." He replied instantly, like it was the easiest and most natural thing in the world for him to say to her, certainly _not_ the most adorable thing that had ever reached Maeko's ears.

He stretched one of his arms into the air, wiggling his fingers in eagerness for her to scooch over.

Maeko obliged wordlessly. She didn't think she could manage any words even if she tried to.

She treaded gently, cautiously. She didn't know where to put her hands. She was afraid of hurting him if she pressed into any part of his body too quickly.

Thankfully, Tendou made all the decisions for her. As soon as she passed underneath his upstretched arm, he swung it over her back and guided her closer to him, up until the moment her face was buried into his neck and her hands were folded against his chest.

It was... comfortable? Relaxing? Although there was a slight chance she'd faint if she was asked to stand on her own right about now.

They fell asleep like that. Maeko had a harder time falling asleep with the rate at which her heart was beating but, eventually, she was able to focus on the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest while he breathed, and it calmed her down until she was able to join him.

\---

Sunlight poured through the curtains and directly into Maeko's eyes. She squinted into the bright light, shielding her eyes with one hand while using the other to stifle a yawn. That was the precise moment she remembered that she didn't sleep in her own bed last night.

Maeko turned onto her other side as quietly as possible, trying her best not to wake him as he slept.

The sun hit his face, too, but luckily it didn't quite reach his eyes and threaten to disturb his sleep. It only reached about to the tip of his nose, leaving curtain-shaped dapples of gold on his skin. His eyes were closed and, occasionally, his eyelids shuddered like he might've been having a bad dream, but his expression was peaceful and calm besides that. It made her glad, those glimpses of peaceful and calm moments on his face. All she really wanted was for him to be able to have a good sleep.

Maeko lifted a hand to Tendou's face, gently dragging her pointer finger up and down the length of his cheek. She didn't realize what she was doing until he stirred in response to her touch, rotating so he was lying on his back and facing the ceiling. Maeko's hand hovered mid-air where his face had been, too afraid to move in the chance he'd wake and catch her red-handed, caressing his face like she was his _girlfriend_ or something. She stayed like that, uncomfortable, until she heard her parent's voices downstairs, rummaging around in the kitchen before they left for work. They'd be expecting her any minute for breakfast.

She peeled herself out of bed, closing the door behind her as softly as she could before heading downstairs. She took a deep breath on every other step of the staircase, steeling her emotions so her parents wouldn't get suspicious.

"There you are. Your food was about to get cold." Maeko's dad spoke without lifting his eyes from his newspaper.

"Sorry, I just overslept a little." Maeko explained, hoping her explanation sounded natural.

"Overslept?" Her mom piped up, walking over to the table with an air of concern. "It looks like you hardly slept at all. You've got the _biggest_ bags under your eyes."

Maeko rubbed at her eyes, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious. "I woke up a few times throughout the night." She left it at that, shoveling forkfuls of food into her mouth so she would have an excuse not to talk anymore.

"You'll have to ask Ayume what kind of products she uses to prevent that. I don't think I've ever seen the girl with bags."

"It's called makeup."

"What was that?"

"Nothing. Thanks for the food."

Maeko's mom gaped from she stood at the sink. Maeko walked over, placing her empty plate on the edge of the counter. She kissed her mom goodbye on the cheek before excusing herself to finish getting ready for school. "Have a good day at work."

"T-thanks—" She didn't quite hear the rest because of how quickly she ran up the stairs.

As much as she wanted to check on Tendou, she knew it was smarter to go to her own bedroom until they both left for work. Chances were slim that her parents would check on her before they left for work. Maeko couldn't even remember the last time they did. She was being overly cautious for nothing, but she didn't want to take any unnecessary risks, either.

Maeko managed to get dressed and run a brush through her hair in the time it took for her parents to finally leave the house. Normally, she would've already been ready for school at this point, but she was moving a lot slower than usual. The temptation to creep down the hallway and into the spare bedroom was overwhelming. It was all she could think about.

So, naturally, as soon as she heard the front door close behind her parents, she bolted out of her bedroom, down the hallway, and then threw open the spare bedroom door.

"Tendou—ah, I mean, Satori—"

Whatever she planned on saying died on the tip of her tongue. Maeko's eyes wandered from the freshly made bed to the open window, confused. She tentatively approached the windowsill and peeked outside. Surely he didn't...

It led onto the roof. Maeko supposed he could've jumped to the ground from that height if he really wanted to, but it would've been extra painful given the condition he was in.

Not to mention it would've required removing the protective screen and then pushing it back into place from outside. He must've woken up and heard Maeko downstairs with her parents and, not wanting to risk getting her into trouble if he got discovered, he went through the trouble of finding an alternative exit.

Maeko sighed. She wished he stayed. She was handling everything, her parents, just fine, and she wanted to offer him something to eat. They could've walked to school together afterwards if he was feeling up to it today.

He didn't even say goodbye. Maeko supposed there was bigger, more important concerns than that, but she couldn't help feeling a little upset by it.

Unless...

She wasn't sure what possessed her to try it. The chances were so phenomenally slim, and yet something compelled her to spare a breath regardless. Sure enough, as her breath spilled across the window and fogged up the glass, a single word was inscribed upon it in invisible ink, what had become their secret language, of sorts, through the many twists and turns of their friendship.

How far they must have come for his _oops_ to become the _thanks_ it was.


End file.
